Buoyed by big series, commissioner sees NHL on a little run: ‘We think we’re doing OK’

Bettman’s birthday wish: A seven-game Cup series

No word yet about what NHL commissioner Gary Bettman wished for on his 57th birthday, but the guess here is that it wasn’t world peace.

No matter. Bettman would probably settle for just a few more games — four to be exact — like the one the Red Wings and Penguins played Tuesday night. Even as the debate continues over whether pro hockey is better off because of Bettman’s 16-year stewardship, or in spite of it, his sport is making a nice little run.

TV ratings, while still modest, are up across the board, for both the regular season and playoffs. The league’s network partner, Versus, had the same number of eyeballs for Game 5 of the Red Wings-Blackhawks series as it did for the final ride of Lance Armstrong’s seventh and last Tour de France triumph in 2005.

The first two games of these Stanley Cup finals on NBC were the best for a major network since 2002, two years before the owners locked the players out and sacrificed a season in exchange for cost certainty. In his state-of-the-league Q-and-A session with reporters Monday, Bettman fairly crowed, “it’s working out pretty much as we planned.

“If it’s not living up to the standards you’ve set for these franchises,” he added, “I apologize. But we think we’re doing OK.”

On the ice, there’s no doubt. The game is more watchable than it’s been in a while, highlighted by talented and marketable youngsters like Pittsburgh’s 21-year-old Sidney Crosby, and you’d be hard-pressed to find two teams that play it with more appeal and skill than the Red Wings and Penguins.

They like to play wide open and hit hard, and the familiarity that comes with meeting in the finals for the second straight year has bred both respect and contempt for one another. Throw in high-definition telecasts, and the action that takes place at the edges — what used to be called the “in-game experience” — translates better than ever to small-but-still-growing TV screens.

What worries Bettman’s critics is how he’s gone about getting the NHL’s games on the tube. With limited drawing power and little leverage on rights fees, the league has shown a willingness to turn the schedule upside down to accommodate TV, including Games 1 and 2.

Hockey’s postseason might be the most demanding on its athletes, but Pittsburgh and Detroit opened hockey’s showcase series with back-to back games this past weekend because that’s what NBC wanted. Bettman must have been relieved to see several stretches of continuous up-and-down play Tuesday night, not just because all those nervous, towel-waving Penguins fans made for a great backdrop, but because it proved players on both sides still had their legs.

The story line set up last year — rising power vs. established one — has held pretty well, too. The Penguins came out of the lockout in financial trouble, then benefited from the draft and some wise spending. The Red Wings came out loaded and had to learn how to live under the new economic order. The rematch confirms that both have adjusted nicely on the fly.

Even the win by Pittsburgh in Game 3 carried an echo. The Penguins climbed back into the series last year with a 3-2 win before surrendering the Cup in six games. Reaching back for one of the game’s old saws, that it isn’t a series until someone loses at home, Detroit coach Mike Babcock said afterward, “This series is where it should be.”

Whether you think he tinkered too much or too little, Bettman deserves credit for at least that much. He was determined to expand hockey’s footprint in the United States, even in locales where ice is usually found only in drink glasses, to make it more attractive to the TV networks. Considering the trouble he’s had striking TV deals, and some of the lingering headaches those late-arriving franchises have caused, the results have been mixed.

But give Bettman credit for this, too: He hasn’t quit trying to make the product better.

Just ahead of Tuesday’s games, the league’s general managers met to consider whether to outlaw otherwise legal hits that result in a blow to an opponent’s head. There was no agreement on stopping those hits, nor on adding penalties that might curb fighting, especially the staged bouts that take place after faceoffs or at the end of games.

The group, though, did agree on one thing: adding a season-ending award that would honor the GM of the year.

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke@ap.org