Spare a thought in your more charitable moments, citizens of Canada, for the one named Gary Bettman. What must it be like to know you are the most vilified man in the country, and not even live here?
Detested prime ministers come and go, but the most unpopular man in Canada has staying power. He was named commissioner of the National Hockey League in December 1992—Brian Mulroney was still in office and eBay had not yet been invented—and almost immediately the fans soured on him. These days, he is booed at the start of the season when he shows up at the NHL draft and booed at the end when he presents the Stanley Cup to the playoff champions. The two most common words he hears in public come in the form of a chant: “Bettman sucks!”
That would warp you somehow, surely. You are a powerful, successful business leader, a titan of Manhattan. You fly on private jets. But your customers, the ticket buyers, mock you openly and jeer you from the stands. You have the...
Christopher Dornan teaches in the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University. He contributed chapters to the first two volumes of the How Canadians Communicate series.
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