A Commissioner Can Hope: Western Conference

The second half of a look into Gary Bettman’s Fantasy Bracket.

Conference Quarterfinals
San Jose-Anaheim: This one is tough, as both teams play in medium-sized cities in enormous media markets in California. The opportunity to get the Bay Area in on a Stanley Cup run is tempting. That said, upsets are attention-getters, Anaheim’s a market that could also use a bit of fan-base shoring, the Ducks’ story this year is pretty incredible, and the possibility of getting some mileage out of renowned villain Chris Pronger would be nice. Gary’s Pick: Anaheim

Detroit-Columbus: It’s hard to believe that the NHL would like to see a big, traditional market like Detroit go out early. However, there’s like zero money in Michigan right now and fans everywhere else would probably be disinterested in another Wings Campbell Bowl. On the flip side, the BJs are a dark, mysterious, and sexy stranger. With Buckeye football about to reach the real dog days of late spring and early summer, central Ohio would go nuts for a deep playoff run. Plus Gary can point out Columbus to his “TEAMS IN WARM CITIES?!!” detractors and say “coulda put’em in New Orleans”. Gary’s Pick: Columbus

Vancouver-St. Louis: I’m sure Gary’ll hem and haw and theBluesnextmatchupplease. Gary’s Pick: St. Louis

Chicago-Calgary: Think of how the old Flames fanbase back in Atlanta would go nuts for a Cup win and help finally spread hockey across the Deep South! Gary’s Pick: Chicago

Conference Semifinals
Chicago-Anaheim: Marginal fans would get sucked in by the “Nice Young Men vs Nasty Old Guys” story line. And of course the storyline would have to follow the traditional progression. Gary’s pick: Chicago

St. Louis-Columbus: St. Louis somehow managed to catch the Beej for 6th place. A clash between a couple basketball-free, big-potential cities in the Midwest sounds like a winner to the marketing guys, especially if it includes more of this. Gary’s pick: St. Louis

Conference Finals
Chicago-St. Louis: The NHL would love to trade off of this old rivalry. There’s also potential to sell marginal fans the “Cubs-Cards…WITH VIOLENCE” angle. Or the “These two teams absolutely blew ass quite recently but now they’re good” angle. That’s probably paraphrasing. Another huge plus is that people on the East Coast wouldn’t have to stay up particularly late for any of the games. Whoever wins, the NHL wins. That said, the bigger the market, the better the attention. Gary’s Pick: Chicago

Stanley Cup Finals
Washington-Chicago: Enormous cities with good (and occasionally incredible) hockey tradition and huge potential. Think the NHL wouldn’t kill for the Past Obama vs. Present Obama storyline? I absolutely promise you Gary Bettman would strangle a toddler to be able to get the POTUS, the most powerful and perhaps revered African-American ever***, and maybe the single most popular person in the world to talk about the NHL. I could see this rivaling any non-Lebron&Kobe NBA final for Ted Neutralfan’s interest. Gary’s Pick: An Alex Ovechkin breakaway goal in the 5th OT of game seven.


***Well, second. But hell, Oprah’s from Chicago too.