America: fast food lifestyle, gas guzzling cars and the dirtiest politicians in North America. Americans believe they have a democratic right to be ignorant, hardly care for the environment and believe that their laws should apply to everyone in the world. I should know; I’m one of them.

To be fair, Americans have done their share of good deeds in the world, but a lot of bad has come out of their country. But Americans have one thing more than any other they ought to apologize for: they’ve ruined hockey.

Hockey is the true Canadian sport, and has been for over 100 years. Regardless of what anyone says, it is the national sport of Canada, not lacrosse! Canadians don’t go to a bar and watch lacrosse games, they don’t grow their beards out and wear jerseys during lacrosse playoffs, they do it for hockey. Let’s face it, hockey is to Canadians like alcohol is to college students; going more than two days without it is a sin!

Sadly, hockey began a dark era in February of 1993 when Commissioner Gary Bettman took over our beloved sport. Gary Bettman (who used to be NBA vice-president) has had a secret agenda to “Americanize” the frozen game which has been evident since becoming commissioner.

Let’s focus on current events, shall we? This year, the Phoenix Coyotes announced that they were bankrupt and either needed financial assistance or they were going to be relocated. Bettman stepped in and said that Phoenix doesn’t need relocation, and that moving a team every time they go bankrupt would rob a city of its fans.

What a fucking hypocrite. In the early ‘90s, Bettman moved several teams around the NHL with complete disregard for their fan base. 1993 saw the Minnesota North Stars (a state that actually enjoys hockey) moved to Texas and renamed the Dallas Stars. My family is from Texas, and as my grandfather puts it, “In this state, hockey is just another word for shit.”

In 1995, the Québec Nordiques were moved to Colorado and then became the Avalanche. Essentially, Québec built an incredible team, so good that during its first year in Colorado, they won the Stanley Cup.

The next two teams to move were the Hartford Whalers, becoming the Carolina Hurricanes in ’97, and the Winnipeg Jets, becoming the Phoenix Coyotes in ’96. Aside from moving teams around, Bettman expanded the NHL by six more teams between 1993 and 2000. They are the Florida Panthers, Anaheim Ducks (formerly the Mighty Ducks), Nashville Predators, Atlanta Thrashers, Minnesota Wild and Columbus Blue Jackets.

So Mr. Bettman, you obviously don’t care much about a fan base if in seven years of being commissioner you move around four teams and pull another six out of thin air. Being a lawyer, enjoying the game obviously doesn’t register with you.

Back to Phoenix. The Coyotes have a record as one of the worst teams in the league having never finished at the top of their division, and only qualifying for the playoffs four times only to be eliminated in the first round. In the last seven years they haven’t finished in the top eight in the Western Conference and have virtually never made a profit. Bettman still insists that the team should stay in Arizona despite its floundering tendencies since its existence.

This year, in a repeat of his 2007 attempt to buy and relocate the Nashville Predators, Jim Blasillie placed a bid to move the Coyotes to Hamilton for $212 million. This bid is about $50 million more than any other offer the team has received, and yet still Bettman is putting his little foot down to keep the team in Phoenix. What an idiot; he’s trying to save a hockey team in the middle of the desert. Is he suffering from heatstroke?

What Bettman is apparently standing for is the fans of the Coyotes. What fans? In Phoenix, it costs $9 to go to a coyote’s game and Taco Bell will throw in a free chalupa. Even with that kind of a deal, the population at regular season games rarely reaches 5,000. In Vancouver, it costs around $80 just to get in the door at GM Place, and almost every night is a sell out. That is what I call a fan base, Mr. Bettman.

Let’s look at the Canadian side of things. In the NHL, about 55–60 per cent of all players are Canadian and the Coyotes are no different. In fact, Phoenix’s coach, general manager and captain are all born north of the 49th Parallel. In my eyes, this team has given all it’s got, but just can’t make it work. The fans aren’t there and the team is not respected regardless of major Canadian involvement. It has now been over a decade of failing, so I think it’s time to just give up, Gary.

If Bettman knew any better, he wouldn’t have moved the Winnipeg Jets to Phoenix in the first place, after all, they had a solid fan base and a quality team. The deciding factor in moving the team away came when management refused to build a new arena for the Jets to play in that contained 2,000 more seats, which was considered a standard for the NHL under Bettman. The owner eventually gave up and sold the Jets to Phoenix under “new NHL pressure,” a.k.a., Bettman, didn’t give him much choice.

A similar situation happened a year earlier in Québec when Nordiques owner Marcel Aubut decided to play roulette with the team and sell it to the highest bidder, despite a solid fan base. The new NHL’s call for higher salaries and newer arenas hamstrung the Canadian hockey world as the NHL was now in sync with the American economy instead of the Canadian one.

Now that the NHL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement and salary cap have evened the playing field a little, Balsillie’s plan to move the Coyotes to Hamilton makes sense. Southern Ontario to hockey is essentially what Israel is to the Jews; the place where, historically speaking, it all came together. For those in Ontario, people who aren’t Senators fans and can’t stand the Leafs (who really can?) need another team to cheer for. This, to me, is why everyone loves Detroit.

People in Ontario need another hockey club, because to cross the border and go to a Red Wings game is just too much effort to do three times a week. Moyes realizes this and so does Jim Balsillie. The only person who doesn’t quite get it is, you guessed it, Gary Bettman.

Being from Southern Ontario, Balsillie is kind of like Jesus Christ to Canadian Hockey fans. He intends to bring the game back to Canada, one team at a time, and after two failing bids to buy Pittsburgh and Nashville, it looks like our saviour might finally perform a miracle. In previous weeks, the NBA, MLB and NFL have all shown their support of Balsillie’s bid to create a new Canadian team. I think there’s a biblical scripture about this… “And on the third bid, a team rose north again.” Something like that.

To further the point that Bettman is a prick, he recently announced that games one and two of this year’s Stanley Cup Final are to be played back to back. The reason for this? TV scheduling.

How insensitive and absurd. NBC is short on programming and therefore has a few open slots to fill. They asked Bettman if the games could be played back to back in order to fill the time, and he changed it around like it was no big deal. Excuse the fuck out of me, but hockey doesn’t change for TV, TV changes for hockey!

Playoff hockey is the most intense hockey of the season, and after three rounds of play, not to mention injuries and fatigue, players need rest. Playing two games back to back within 24 hours of each other is lame!

The NHL needs a new commissioner, and they need one fast! Bettman has been in power for way to long and he’s ruining hockey for all of us, especially Canadians. If you want to find out more about Bettman’s reign of terror, pick up Bon Cop, Bad Cop a Canadian film that satires the NHL struggle with a subplot based around the character of “Harry Buttman.”

With blades of steel and sticks of wood, I will not let our neighbours south of the border ruin this game for all of us. We will be victorious, and it is only a matter of time until a Canadian team hoists the Cup over their head once again.