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.

A Commissioner Can Hope: Eastern Conference

The Eastern Conference first round is set. It turned out just like I hoped, which was a nice surprise. A different matter is what Count Hockula and his minions are hoping to see. Gary will, of course, graciously congratulate whomever wins, but deep down he’ll be crushed to see a New Jersey-Calgary Stanley Cup Final. And, you know, with good reason. The good news for Gary and crew is that a whole bunch of big-market teams got in, so ratings should be decent. So without further ado, the NHL marketing team’s wet dream:

Conference Quarterfinal
Boston-Montreal: NHL execs have to be overjoyed that these two teams bumbled into one another again. But there’s a simple truth for marketing in the NHL: American teams need wins more than Canadian teams do. Gary’s pick: Boston

Washington-NYR: This one is a bit tougher. Surely the NHL would love to have the huge-market Rangers in as long as possible. That said, the Rangers are marketable in New York; Alex Ovechkin is marketable nationwide, with a rare ability to make SportsCenter show hockey highlights. Gary’s pick: Washington

New Jersey-Carolina: New Jersey has won a bunch of games, series, and trophies over the last fifteen years, and it’s gotten a bit…stale, to non-NJ fans. It’d be nice to keep New Jersey around to theoretically keep the NY metro area interested, but that probably wouldn’t make a huge difference. Conversely, Raleigh’s one of the Count’s sunbelt markets that could really use a(nother) little playoff run. This could be dreary, but there’s a plan. Gary’s pick: New Jersey

Philly-Pittsburgh: NHL bigwigs really should be thanking every deity they can think of for these first-round match-ups. In this series, Philly’s a good team and a great market and all, but…well, no contest. Gary’s pick: Pittsburgh

Conference Semifinal
Boston-Pittsburgh: This series would certainly capture a few mainstream headlines. Gary’s pick: Pittsburgh

Washington-New Jersey: It has Ovie and Green, Brodeur and Parise, so it can’t be ignored. Gary’s pick: Washington

Conference Final
Pittsburgh-Washington: The hype would be borderline unbearable, but the NHL could use it. You can sort of picture people in, say, Utah or South Dakota or Bristol CT talking about hockey, which essentially doesn’t happen. As for a winner…ride the Russian Machine until it breaks. Which, of course, it won’t. Gary’s pick: Washington