NHL Franchise Boys

For the seventh straight year, the New York Rangers sit atop Forbes’ annual list of team valuations, and they’ve become the first NHL franchise valued at $2 billion. The Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, Chicago Blackhawks, and Boston Bruins round out the unchanged top five.

The Edmonton Oilers had the biggest jump of any team, doubling last year’s $550 million valuation to $1.1 billion. No teams decreased in value from last year. The team with the smallest increase – the Vancouver Canucks – saw a 14% rise in value from last year and an 18% rise over the last five years.

Here’s the full list:

The Montreal Canadiens have apparently requested permission to speak to Jeff Gorton about a role within the organization, but this role is not considered to be the GM role according to Elliotte Friedman. The news then broke that Assistant GM Scott Melanby was resigning from his role with the team. All of this turmoil surrounding the Habs following their 5-15-2 start. It has also been rumoured that Montreal has been interviewing candidates to replace their current GM Marc Bergevin, but according to Chris Johnston the team will only pursue a French General Manager. It will be interesting to see if the Canadiens can find a candidate who fits their needs for both experience and language requirements. If this is going to be a prerequisite to the job in the future the Canadiens must do a better job of developing French speaking talent.

The NHL has had the same commissioner for almost 30 years his name is Gary Bettman. In those almost 30 years the NHL has had a lot of things happen obviously, some good things, some bad. In light of the recent handling of the Kyle Beach situation there has been a dark cloud hanging over the NHL and rightfully so. Add this incident in with the three lockouts, poor marketing, and much more it is safe to say that Gary Bettman is far from popular. This seems to be a case of the straw that broke the camels back. Bettman has easily been the worst commissioner in all of sports pretty much since he took over.

The three lockouts under Bettman have all been preventable and have come at some of the worst times. The league has struggled to grow in popularity in part because of those three lockouts. As a fan, it has also been incredibly frustrating with how bad the NHL has been at marketing itself. After the lockout in 2004 they had little to no coverage on a national scale as their games were on the OLN at the time that eventually transitioned into NBC Sports Network.

They started getting a little better with the marketing once it became a full on NBC deal. But even then, the failure to put the sports biggest stars on the national broadcast games was puzzling. Bettman hasn’t don’t nearly enough in the time he has been in charge to grow the game and its a damn shame.

There have also been some former players who have voiced their frustration in regards to Bettman and the way he has handled the CTE and brain injury link. The bottom line is the NHL has been in need of a change with the people in charge and it starts with Gary Bettman. Between him and Don Fehr, both of these guys should be removed from office and its been a longtime coming. The situation with Kyle Beach shows just how out of touch both of these guys are with reality.

It’s obvious that Bettman is disliked around the league and even more so with the fan base. He has shown a lack of care for the players including current and past. The time for a change is now, with a new major TV deal in place the opportunity for the NHL to grow is right now. It would be the perfect time for a new commissioner to come in and lead the charge and take the NHL to the next level so it can compete around the world with the NFL and NBA.

Here’s to hoping the owners come together and can get Bettman out. I know it is easier said than done, but now is the time and it will only help the sport going forward once Bettman is gone.