B&BMan
Newbie
The NHL Is On Thin Ice
By Mark Neufeldt
The National Hockey League (NHL) season has reached the quarter pole, and already there are rumblings of an attendance crisis. Some teams are reporting attendance figures as low as 8,000 for games in state-of-the-art arenas that seat capacity crowds of more than 20,000. Chicago, Long Island, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Colorado, and Phoenix have all seen precipitous declines in attendance- some as low as 22% below last season's figures.
Overall, the League has seen average attendance dip from 17,285 a year ago to 16,743 this season. This was a decline that Hockey News reporter, Ken Campbell, ominously described as a "slippery slope," pointing out that "players receive 54 per cent of revenues up to $2.2 billion, but if the decline in attendance continues, there's a very good chance they could be giving money back to the league this season." (1)
Some observers charge that League attendance is actually much worse than is being reported. Detroit News hockey correspondent, Ted Kulfan, found 13,000 fans present at a game where the Detroit Red Wings had announced an attendance of 20,066. Former Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reporter, Jamie Fitzpatrick, asked "if Hockeytown can pad its numbers by about 30 percent, what kind of lies are they telling at other NHL arenas? How many real people showed up for Wednesday's games in Florida (which reported 14,312 loyal customers), Atlanta (12,579) or Anaheim (12,394)?" (2)
League officials had high hopes that a new collective bargaining agreement between the League and the players, coupled with rule changes designed to speed-up the game, would bring the fans back after a year-long lockout in 2005. But, what the evidence seems to indicate, is that the League's attendance problems began much earlier, and can be traced to sweeping changes instituted by a Jewish executive, his Jewish staff, and Jewish network television executives, who demanded changes to the game that reflected their own interests, which came at the expense of hockey fans. (3)
Knowledgeable fans and hockey journalists point to the reign of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman - a prominent Jewish activist, and former executive in the National Basketball Association- as the source of the current disconnect between the League and ticket buyers. Though he grew up on Long Island, New York, where hockey is a very popular sport, and claimed he was a fan of the game, he never actually played the game as a youth. Bettman was the first commissioner in League history who did not have real ties to the game. (4)
Upon assuming the commissionership, Bettman immediately surrounded himself with a coterie of corporate, media-savvy Jews- Steve Solomon (ABC), Arthur Pincus (Washington Post) , and Bernandette Mansur (Reebok) - who were tasked with securing a network television contract for the League. Bettman's staff was so top-heavy with Jews, that a host of hockey columnists, including the Toronto Sun's Al Strachen, began euphemistically referring to the League brass as the "New York lawyers," and complained that they "didn't understand the game." Bettman's ruling clique was so out-of-touch with the rest of the hockey world that the phrase stuck, and Strachen was forced to defend himself against charges of "anti-Semitism" leveled by Jewish hockey writer Stan Fischler on "Hockey Night in Canada."
In return for the proposed network television contract, media executives demanded their pound of flesh from the game. In keeping with the agenda of the controlled-media, which seeks to uproot all vestiges of White identity and culture, every aspect of League operations were exposed to a relentless barrage of critique: the game was too White, too rural and too violent for television consumption, warned the suits.
To understand why Gary Bettman and his staff made such drastic changes to the game of hockey, a brief understanding of Jewish evolutionary strategy is necessary. Professor Kevin McDonald has identified key elements of this strategy in his studies of Jewish behavior. McDonald's research has revealed that Diaspora Jews feel most threatened by "anti-Semitism"- both real and imagined- in countries where cultural and racial homogeneity is the norm. In response to the perceived threat of "anti-Semitism," influential Jews have historically acted upon such fears by forming "communities of criticism," which served as the intellectual basis to challenge the fundamental assumptions of the leading institutions of their host countries, and ultimately to end homogeneity and assume control of those institutions for themselves. (5)
One well-known group of Jewish social critics, The Frankfurt School, worked tirelessly in the early 20th Century to pathologize the traditional principles of family, church, and state, as a means to end White hegemony in the West through the weakening of its most powerful institutions. This pattern of social criticism (which gave birth to "political correctness") by influential Jews was repeated in the field of psychology by Sigmund Freud, in anthropology by Franz Boas, and, in the modern context, is evident in recent efforts on the part of the Jewish-led neo-conservative movement to undermine U.S. foreign policy and immigration policy.
The NHL has traditionally been perhaps the most racially-homogenous sport in existence. Of the thousands of athletes to lace up their skates for NHL play, a mere 35 have been Black since 1917. This racial integrity, coupled with the League's thinly veiled nationalism and implicit warrior culture, made it an attractive target for Jewish subversion. (6)
The demands for "diversification" of the League, pushed forward by television executives, and the response of Gary Bettman and his staff to them, illustrate this pattern of criticism, which was, in this case, a weapon used to undermine the founding assumptions of the game of hockey. Whereas hockey was once the property of fans of all levels of economic attainment, appropriately priced and marketed for their consumption, it has become a game dedicated to corporate exploitation and globalist consumerism. Whereas it was once a game which required equal-parts finesse and physical play, it is becoming one that severely restricts and penalizes most forms of contact. Finally, whereas it was once a game for the native sons of Europe, and the White families of rural Western Canada, and the rural mid-Western and Eastern U.S., it is now a game that aggressively pursues inner-city youth and minority discretionary spending. (7)
In Bettman and his affiliated "New York lawyers," the Jewish media executives found the perfect vehicle to remake the game in their own image. Where previous White League officials were reluctant to tamper with the game, Bettman was an eager participant in its reworking. The irony is that fans were very happy with the game just as it was when Bettman assumed power and none of the changes to it were necessary.
The decision to pursue a network-based television contract with Fox and ABC (the League already had a regional television pact with SportsChannel) as a foundation for economic growth was always a bit of a mystery. Game-play was fast and the puck was small and difficult to follow on the screen. Most television people considered hockey even less telegenic than its Commissioner, and the League had already failed its audition for network TV twice in the 1970's. At best, what Bettman attempted was an incredible and inadvisable gamble.
The Commissioner took over a thriving "gate-driven" business in 1993, where franchises were averaging nearly 90 percent of paid-seating capacity League-wide, and at the time, nearly all teams were profitable. Player salaries were kept in check in comparison to other professional sports, and as a result, average ticket prices remained affordable at $32.75 in 1995. What the League lacked were the astronomical dollars attached to a big-league television contract- which were enjoyed by all of the other major sports. Now, the NFL is by far the largest recipient of television revenue (reportedly $2.2 billion US for the 2012 season), with the NBA and MLB second and third ($500 million and $479 million, respectively). The NHL gained that contract, though for much less money ($80 million), eventually, but lost it again as the result of the lockout in 2005, and now has a contract worth about $60 million. (8)
To attract those dollars, the League pursued a radical relocation program, moving four franchises (Minnesota, Quebec, Winnipeg, and Hartford) from traditional to non-traditional hockey markets in Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, and Raleigh, and expanding by five teams (Miami, Columbus, Nashville, Tampa, and Anaheim) with little to no connection to the game. "Both Winnipeg (99.3) and Quebec (94.9)," wrote Fischler, "played to more than 90 percent capacity, but that wasn't enough in the Bettman era. The accent was on new arenas, luxury boxes, merchandising, and bigger TV deals." (9)
The result of all the expansion created unstable franchises in non-hockey markets and diluted the talent pool through inadvisable expansion, to the point that the game became almost unwatchable, even to long-time fans. As a result of the new (2005) collective bargaining agreement, the economic emphasis on revenue generated by attendance returned. However, whereas in the past the League could count on strong attendance in traditional hockey locations such as Quebec and Winnipeg, it can no longer count on fan support in non-hockey locations in the U.S. West and Southwest, where franchises were moved in the mid-90's to secure a national television contract. The interests of the game were damaged further by removing the support system, including access to professional training and instruction, from young athletes in Canada, who have traditionally stocked the League with 60% of its talent, and placing access to those assets in areas which have never produced even one NHL player.
Just as damaging were the attacks on the rules and culture of the game. The "New York lawyers" began stripping the game of much of the passion and tradition which had attracted fans to the sport for generations.
A policy of relentless commodification for television consumption replaced the "mom and pop" feel of the "old" NHL. The "grand old barns" like the Boston Garden, Chicago Stadium, and Montreal Forum were renamed or replaced with the innocuous-sounding titles of their corporate sponsors to bring in more corporate financing. Gone too were the traditional names of the conferences (Campbell, Wales). Both were named after traditional Canadian icons: Clarence S. Campbell, who attained fame as a Rhodes Scholar, lawyer, and prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials; and The Prince of Wales Conference was named after a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the ruling monarchy of England. Both were scuttled in favor of historically-cleansed monikers for geographic locations, which became the Eastern and Western Conferences, respectively. Traditional divisions were renamed, removing their historical ties. They too were replaced by plain, uninspiring geographical titles, reminiscent of the NBA. (League officials saw the old, traditional names as impediments to securing the new, non-White fan base they coveted in the Southern and Southwestern United States). Everything from television timeouts to sweat towels were quantified, exploited, and for sale in the "new" NHL.
But none of this new funding resulted in even a penny saved by ticket buyers, who now pay an average ticket price of $44.22 and as much as $180.00 for the "really good" seats (luxury boxes)- most of which aren't even for sale to individuals, as they are now primarily the property of corporate executives, who hold them tax-free to entertain clients.
The aggressive re-writing of the game's history and traditions was followed by an equally aggressive critique of its rules.
It was no secret that network television executives hated what they termed the "violence" of the sport. The movie Slapshot - a hilarious, if completely inaccurate picture of minor league hockey - lampooned the traditions of the game, emphasizing an image of gratuitous violence that was parroted throughout the media. Sportscasters regularly seized upon negative media-generated images of the sport, and replayed them over and over again, while simultaneously underreporting and suppressing news of the numerous instances of extra-competitive violence committed by minorities in other predominantly-"diverse" sports. Hockey players were depicted as toothless, uneducated buffoons, while their non-White counterparts in football were held up as models for the youth in United Way commercials.
Any physical contact was recast by the "New York lawyers" as "violence" and targeted for elimination within the game. The first target of League officials was fighting. Fans and players alike loved fighting because it represented the spontaneous outpouring of emotion that many other games lacked, and often influenced the outcome in tight contests. Players also understood that fighting helped prevent injuries by making players accountable physically for their conduct on the ice. Studies also showed a correlation between fan attendance and fighting. Poll after poll revealed that fighting was one of the most popular aspects of the game among both players and fans, yet those polls were ignored. (10)
Bettman found an energetic Shabbats Goy in the crusade to eliminate fighting from the game in an unlikely source, Wayne Gretzky, who had been the beneficiary of some of the game's most reputable pugilists in the 1980's. Much of the extra "ice" and "time" which allowed him to break all of those records was purchased by the able fists of men like Marty McSorley and Dave Samenko, who earned their living on the ice the hard way. Gretzky campaigned hard for the end of fighting, convinced by Bettman and others that the future of the game was somehow tied to its elimination.
Bettman's use of Gretzky (using naïve, yet well-meaning Whites as pawns to achieve Jewish goals is a frequent tactic of Jews) worked particularly well in the effort to end fighting. For every five players that would go on record against the restriction of fighting, Gretzky would be trotted out by television executives to move forward their agenda.
Eventually, the League won out, and it was decided that players caught fighting were to be tagged with "instigator" penalties by officials who were assigned to determine who started an altercation (not always an easy task). Gradually, more restrictive rules came into effect that suspended repeat offenders, and the League's "enforcers" were gradually phased-out of the game. "Body Checking"-the use of the shoulder or hip to slow or stop an opposing player who is carrying the puck- has also been severely curtailed. Contact that was common even ten years ago is now routinely penalized. Penalties for physical contact have become so frequent that many fans question whether or not "checking" is even legal in today's game. The results of all of this restriction on "violence" were increased instances of injuries caused by "high-sticks" and a rapidly rising number of concussions suffered by players, who lived under a false sense of security that they would be protected by the new rules. In the end, outlawing contact under the banner of eliminating "violence" only created a climate where more dangerous incidences have occurred with increasing frequency.
Next, came a rather conspicuous campaign to rid the League of "intolerance". Gary Bettman called for an end to the "systematic racial discrimination against Blacks in hockey." He formed a "Diversity Task Force" and required all players to attend "sensitivity training" seminars. The League was considered "too White", by the network executives and their media mouthpieces, lapdog columnists, and League officials, who clamored for more minority representation in the sport. Curiously, those same media mouthpieces and League officials never uttered a complaint about the vast overrepresentation of non-Whites in a variety of other sports, nor did they point out the glaring lack of diversity in the NHL league office, or indeed around the sporting world- as Jews held the reigns of power in all four of the major sporting leagues: basketball, baseball, football and hockey. (11)
Every non-White present within hockey was suddenly considered an expert on what needed to be done to induce more minorities to take up the sport. One by one, they were led before the cameras to complain of real or imagined abuse. Phoenix Coyotes winger, George Laroque, wailed that "bananas" had been hurled his way by fans in the US, while Columbus Blue Jackets winger, Anson Carter, said that the game wasn't marketed in a manner acceptable to Black youth. Players were threatened with heavy fines and suspensions if they uttered a harsh, un-PC word to their fellow skaters. (12)
NHL programs like "Be a Player" dumped tens of thousands of dollars into inner-city ice hockey programs in places like Harlem, NY and Washington D.C., which produced few, if any, hockey players of note, while eleven public ice rinks in Winnipeg, Manitoba- a hotbed of White NHL talent- faced closing, and the Polish National Team was forced to resort to begging for equipment on an ABC broadcast of the 1998 Winter Olympics, just to compete.
League officials claimed that the "disadvantaged" classes lacked the resources to play an expensive sport like ice hockey, yet Blacks made up just 0.02 percent of the Canadian population until 1990. Nor were Blacks particularly frugal in their spending habits, as many found the means in the mid-nineties to purchase very expensive (100 dollars a pair) "Air Jordan" basketball shoes and other high-dollar consumer goods. Yet, in 1998, former International Hockey Federation Vice President, Bill Jamisen, gushed: "With the youth hockey programs that are in place now, such as Hockey in Harlem, in 20 years we may see a strong influx of African American or Latino players. Who knows? The league MVP could be from Raleigh North Carolina, or be Black or Hispanic. And if he's not, the fans will be." To date, not a single graduate of the NHL Diversity program has played even one, NHL regular season game.
So just what is the future of the NHL?
Jamieson may be correct. If the game continues to alienate its traditional White player and fan bases, those fans may spend their entertainment dollars and their recreational hours elsewhere. Hockey fans have seen their teams moved from their homebases, their traditions trampled on, and their heroes demeaned. However, it is hard to imagine that the game will not continue in some form, as it is too deeply embedded in Canadian culture and Canadian blood not to survive. There is little question that it will suffer the lingering effects of Bettman's poor decisions and a diminished prestige, due to his non-hockey decisions. Ironically, the first signs of the League regaining its health may be its low attendance numbers. Fans are displaying a healthy backlash to the clique of "New York Lawyers" who have so unceremoniously hijacked their game. Undoubtedly, Bettman needs to go. Even leaders in the business world recognize this fact, as he was named one of the "worst" executives by Business Week in 2005. The long honeymoon he has enjoyed with the league was purchased by a press-wing that never had the best interests of the game, nor its fans at heart. (13)
Hockey has deep roots in our White racial spirit, and is played in 17 White countries around the world. Some consider the game of ice hockey a metaphor for our European pilgrimage to the New World, where daily survival was a struggle that demanded incredible teamwork and untameable courage. Settlers faced steep odds as they battled the frozen elements of an unsettled prairie, while maintaining vigilance under constant harassment and attack by savages. The true owners of the game of hockey are its fans and enthusiasts, young and old alike. If hockey is to survive, the White men and women of the West will need to summon some of the courage displayed by their ancestors and throw off the foreign influence of the meddlers who are ruining their sport.
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Notes:
(1) http://www.thehockeynews.com/en/columnist/detail.asp?columni st=186; also, see http://www.cbc.ca/sports/columns/morrison/061018.html
(2) http://proicehockey.about.com/b/a/255966.htm
(3) http://www.nhl.com/nhlhq/cba/cba_ratified072205.html
(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Bettman; also, see http://www.garybettmansucks.com/
(5) http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/
(6) http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmhockey1.html
(7) http://proicehockey.about.com/b/a/218867.htm
(8) http://www.moagandcompany.com/i_a/industry_analysis.pdf
(9) http://www.hockeyresearch.com/mfoster/business/nhl_attn.html
(10) http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0254/is_2_62/ai_1 00202310/pg_1
(11) http://www.jewishsports.com/profiles/influentialjews.htm
(12) http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCM/is_3_30/ai_8 0678770; also see http://www.blackathlete.net/artman/publish/article_02497.sht ml
(13) http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_02/b3915648. htm
[Above article from the pro-White news site nationalvanguard.org]
By Mark Neufeldt
The National Hockey League (NHL) season has reached the quarter pole, and already there are rumblings of an attendance crisis. Some teams are reporting attendance figures as low as 8,000 for games in state-of-the-art arenas that seat capacity crowds of more than 20,000. Chicago, Long Island, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Colorado, and Phoenix have all seen precipitous declines in attendance- some as low as 22% below last season's figures.
Overall, the League has seen average attendance dip from 17,285 a year ago to 16,743 this season. This was a decline that Hockey News reporter, Ken Campbell, ominously described as a "slippery slope," pointing out that "players receive 54 per cent of revenues up to $2.2 billion, but if the decline in attendance continues, there's a very good chance they could be giving money back to the league this season." (1)
Some observers charge that League attendance is actually much worse than is being reported. Detroit News hockey correspondent, Ted Kulfan, found 13,000 fans present at a game where the Detroit Red Wings had announced an attendance of 20,066. Former Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reporter, Jamie Fitzpatrick, asked "if Hockeytown can pad its numbers by about 30 percent, what kind of lies are they telling at other NHL arenas? How many real people showed up for Wednesday's games in Florida (which reported 14,312 loyal customers), Atlanta (12,579) or Anaheim (12,394)?" (2)
League officials had high hopes that a new collective bargaining agreement between the League and the players, coupled with rule changes designed to speed-up the game, would bring the fans back after a year-long lockout in 2005. But, what the evidence seems to indicate, is that the League's attendance problems began much earlier, and can be traced to sweeping changes instituted by a Jewish executive, his Jewish staff, and Jewish network television executives, who demanded changes to the game that reflected their own interests, which came at the expense of hockey fans. (3)
Knowledgeable fans and hockey journalists point to the reign of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman - a prominent Jewish activist, and former executive in the National Basketball Association- as the source of the current disconnect between the League and ticket buyers. Though he grew up on Long Island, New York, where hockey is a very popular sport, and claimed he was a fan of the game, he never actually played the game as a youth. Bettman was the first commissioner in League history who did not have real ties to the game. (4)
Upon assuming the commissionership, Bettman immediately surrounded himself with a coterie of corporate, media-savvy Jews- Steve Solomon (ABC), Arthur Pincus (Washington Post) , and Bernandette Mansur (Reebok) - who were tasked with securing a network television contract for the League. Bettman's staff was so top-heavy with Jews, that a host of hockey columnists, including the Toronto Sun's Al Strachen, began euphemistically referring to the League brass as the "New York lawyers," and complained that they "didn't understand the game." Bettman's ruling clique was so out-of-touch with the rest of the hockey world that the phrase stuck, and Strachen was forced to defend himself against charges of "anti-Semitism" leveled by Jewish hockey writer Stan Fischler on "Hockey Night in Canada."
In return for the proposed network television contract, media executives demanded their pound of flesh from the game. In keeping with the agenda of the controlled-media, which seeks to uproot all vestiges of White identity and culture, every aspect of League operations were exposed to a relentless barrage of critique: the game was too White, too rural and too violent for television consumption, warned the suits.
To understand why Gary Bettman and his staff made such drastic changes to the game of hockey, a brief understanding of Jewish evolutionary strategy is necessary. Professor Kevin McDonald has identified key elements of this strategy in his studies of Jewish behavior. McDonald's research has revealed that Diaspora Jews feel most threatened by "anti-Semitism"- both real and imagined- in countries where cultural and racial homogeneity is the norm. In response to the perceived threat of "anti-Semitism," influential Jews have historically acted upon such fears by forming "communities of criticism," which served as the intellectual basis to challenge the fundamental assumptions of the leading institutions of their host countries, and ultimately to end homogeneity and assume control of those institutions for themselves. (5)
One well-known group of Jewish social critics, The Frankfurt School, worked tirelessly in the early 20th Century to pathologize the traditional principles of family, church, and state, as a means to end White hegemony in the West through the weakening of its most powerful institutions. This pattern of social criticism (which gave birth to "political correctness") by influential Jews was repeated in the field of psychology by Sigmund Freud, in anthropology by Franz Boas, and, in the modern context, is evident in recent efforts on the part of the Jewish-led neo-conservative movement to undermine U.S. foreign policy and immigration policy.
The NHL has traditionally been perhaps the most racially-homogenous sport in existence. Of the thousands of athletes to lace up their skates for NHL play, a mere 35 have been Black since 1917. This racial integrity, coupled with the League's thinly veiled nationalism and implicit warrior culture, made it an attractive target for Jewish subversion. (6)
The demands for "diversification" of the League, pushed forward by television executives, and the response of Gary Bettman and his staff to them, illustrate this pattern of criticism, which was, in this case, a weapon used to undermine the founding assumptions of the game of hockey. Whereas hockey was once the property of fans of all levels of economic attainment, appropriately priced and marketed for their consumption, it has become a game dedicated to corporate exploitation and globalist consumerism. Whereas it was once a game which required equal-parts finesse and physical play, it is becoming one that severely restricts and penalizes most forms of contact. Finally, whereas it was once a game for the native sons of Europe, and the White families of rural Western Canada, and the rural mid-Western and Eastern U.S., it is now a game that aggressively pursues inner-city youth and minority discretionary spending. (7)
In Bettman and his affiliated "New York lawyers," the Jewish media executives found the perfect vehicle to remake the game in their own image. Where previous White League officials were reluctant to tamper with the game, Bettman was an eager participant in its reworking. The irony is that fans were very happy with the game just as it was when Bettman assumed power and none of the changes to it were necessary.
The decision to pursue a network-based television contract with Fox and ABC (the League already had a regional television pact with SportsChannel) as a foundation for economic growth was always a bit of a mystery. Game-play was fast and the puck was small and difficult to follow on the screen. Most television people considered hockey even less telegenic than its Commissioner, and the League had already failed its audition for network TV twice in the 1970's. At best, what Bettman attempted was an incredible and inadvisable gamble.
The Commissioner took over a thriving "gate-driven" business in 1993, where franchises were averaging nearly 90 percent of paid-seating capacity League-wide, and at the time, nearly all teams were profitable. Player salaries were kept in check in comparison to other professional sports, and as a result, average ticket prices remained affordable at $32.75 in 1995. What the League lacked were the astronomical dollars attached to a big-league television contract- which were enjoyed by all of the other major sports. Now, the NFL is by far the largest recipient of television revenue (reportedly $2.2 billion US for the 2012 season), with the NBA and MLB second and third ($500 million and $479 million, respectively). The NHL gained that contract, though for much less money ($80 million), eventually, but lost it again as the result of the lockout in 2005, and now has a contract worth about $60 million. (8)
To attract those dollars, the League pursued a radical relocation program, moving four franchises (Minnesota, Quebec, Winnipeg, and Hartford) from traditional to non-traditional hockey markets in Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, and Raleigh, and expanding by five teams (Miami, Columbus, Nashville, Tampa, and Anaheim) with little to no connection to the game. "Both Winnipeg (99.3) and Quebec (94.9)," wrote Fischler, "played to more than 90 percent capacity, but that wasn't enough in the Bettman era. The accent was on new arenas, luxury boxes, merchandising, and bigger TV deals." (9)
The result of all the expansion created unstable franchises in non-hockey markets and diluted the talent pool through inadvisable expansion, to the point that the game became almost unwatchable, even to long-time fans. As a result of the new (2005) collective bargaining agreement, the economic emphasis on revenue generated by attendance returned. However, whereas in the past the League could count on strong attendance in traditional hockey locations such as Quebec and Winnipeg, it can no longer count on fan support in non-hockey locations in the U.S. West and Southwest, where franchises were moved in the mid-90's to secure a national television contract. The interests of the game were damaged further by removing the support system, including access to professional training and instruction, from young athletes in Canada, who have traditionally stocked the League with 60% of its talent, and placing access to those assets in areas which have never produced even one NHL player.
Just as damaging were the attacks on the rules and culture of the game. The "New York lawyers" began stripping the game of much of the passion and tradition which had attracted fans to the sport for generations.
A policy of relentless commodification for television consumption replaced the "mom and pop" feel of the "old" NHL. The "grand old barns" like the Boston Garden, Chicago Stadium, and Montreal Forum were renamed or replaced with the innocuous-sounding titles of their corporate sponsors to bring in more corporate financing. Gone too were the traditional names of the conferences (Campbell, Wales). Both were named after traditional Canadian icons: Clarence S. Campbell, who attained fame as a Rhodes Scholar, lawyer, and prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials; and The Prince of Wales Conference was named after a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the ruling monarchy of England. Both were scuttled in favor of historically-cleansed monikers for geographic locations, which became the Eastern and Western Conferences, respectively. Traditional divisions were renamed, removing their historical ties. They too were replaced by plain, uninspiring geographical titles, reminiscent of the NBA. (League officials saw the old, traditional names as impediments to securing the new, non-White fan base they coveted in the Southern and Southwestern United States). Everything from television timeouts to sweat towels were quantified, exploited, and for sale in the "new" NHL.
But none of this new funding resulted in even a penny saved by ticket buyers, who now pay an average ticket price of $44.22 and as much as $180.00 for the "really good" seats (luxury boxes)- most of which aren't even for sale to individuals, as they are now primarily the property of corporate executives, who hold them tax-free to entertain clients.
The aggressive re-writing of the game's history and traditions was followed by an equally aggressive critique of its rules.
It was no secret that network television executives hated what they termed the "violence" of the sport. The movie Slapshot - a hilarious, if completely inaccurate picture of minor league hockey - lampooned the traditions of the game, emphasizing an image of gratuitous violence that was parroted throughout the media. Sportscasters regularly seized upon negative media-generated images of the sport, and replayed them over and over again, while simultaneously underreporting and suppressing news of the numerous instances of extra-competitive violence committed by minorities in other predominantly-"diverse" sports. Hockey players were depicted as toothless, uneducated buffoons, while their non-White counterparts in football were held up as models for the youth in United Way commercials.
Any physical contact was recast by the "New York lawyers" as "violence" and targeted for elimination within the game. The first target of League officials was fighting. Fans and players alike loved fighting because it represented the spontaneous outpouring of emotion that many other games lacked, and often influenced the outcome in tight contests. Players also understood that fighting helped prevent injuries by making players accountable physically for their conduct on the ice. Studies also showed a correlation between fan attendance and fighting. Poll after poll revealed that fighting was one of the most popular aspects of the game among both players and fans, yet those polls were ignored. (10)
Bettman found an energetic Shabbats Goy in the crusade to eliminate fighting from the game in an unlikely source, Wayne Gretzky, who had been the beneficiary of some of the game's most reputable pugilists in the 1980's. Much of the extra "ice" and "time" which allowed him to break all of those records was purchased by the able fists of men like Marty McSorley and Dave Samenko, who earned their living on the ice the hard way. Gretzky campaigned hard for the end of fighting, convinced by Bettman and others that the future of the game was somehow tied to its elimination.
Bettman's use of Gretzky (using naïve, yet well-meaning Whites as pawns to achieve Jewish goals is a frequent tactic of Jews) worked particularly well in the effort to end fighting. For every five players that would go on record against the restriction of fighting, Gretzky would be trotted out by television executives to move forward their agenda.
Eventually, the League won out, and it was decided that players caught fighting were to be tagged with "instigator" penalties by officials who were assigned to determine who started an altercation (not always an easy task). Gradually, more restrictive rules came into effect that suspended repeat offenders, and the League's "enforcers" were gradually phased-out of the game. "Body Checking"-the use of the shoulder or hip to slow or stop an opposing player who is carrying the puck- has also been severely curtailed. Contact that was common even ten years ago is now routinely penalized. Penalties for physical contact have become so frequent that many fans question whether or not "checking" is even legal in today's game. The results of all of this restriction on "violence" were increased instances of injuries caused by "high-sticks" and a rapidly rising number of concussions suffered by players, who lived under a false sense of security that they would be protected by the new rules. In the end, outlawing contact under the banner of eliminating "violence" only created a climate where more dangerous incidences have occurred with increasing frequency.
Next, came a rather conspicuous campaign to rid the League of "intolerance". Gary Bettman called for an end to the "systematic racial discrimination against Blacks in hockey." He formed a "Diversity Task Force" and required all players to attend "sensitivity training" seminars. The League was considered "too White", by the network executives and their media mouthpieces, lapdog columnists, and League officials, who clamored for more minority representation in the sport. Curiously, those same media mouthpieces and League officials never uttered a complaint about the vast overrepresentation of non-Whites in a variety of other sports, nor did they point out the glaring lack of diversity in the NHL league office, or indeed around the sporting world- as Jews held the reigns of power in all four of the major sporting leagues: basketball, baseball, football and hockey. (11)
Every non-White present within hockey was suddenly considered an expert on what needed to be done to induce more minorities to take up the sport. One by one, they were led before the cameras to complain of real or imagined abuse. Phoenix Coyotes winger, George Laroque, wailed that "bananas" had been hurled his way by fans in the US, while Columbus Blue Jackets winger, Anson Carter, said that the game wasn't marketed in a manner acceptable to Black youth. Players were threatened with heavy fines and suspensions if they uttered a harsh, un-PC word to their fellow skaters. (12)
NHL programs like "Be a Player" dumped tens of thousands of dollars into inner-city ice hockey programs in places like Harlem, NY and Washington D.C., which produced few, if any, hockey players of note, while eleven public ice rinks in Winnipeg, Manitoba- a hotbed of White NHL talent- faced closing, and the Polish National Team was forced to resort to begging for equipment on an ABC broadcast of the 1998 Winter Olympics, just to compete.
League officials claimed that the "disadvantaged" classes lacked the resources to play an expensive sport like ice hockey, yet Blacks made up just 0.02 percent of the Canadian population until 1990. Nor were Blacks particularly frugal in their spending habits, as many found the means in the mid-nineties to purchase very expensive (100 dollars a pair) "Air Jordan" basketball shoes and other high-dollar consumer goods. Yet, in 1998, former International Hockey Federation Vice President, Bill Jamisen, gushed: "With the youth hockey programs that are in place now, such as Hockey in Harlem, in 20 years we may see a strong influx of African American or Latino players. Who knows? The league MVP could be from Raleigh North Carolina, or be Black or Hispanic. And if he's not, the fans will be." To date, not a single graduate of the NHL Diversity program has played even one, NHL regular season game.
So just what is the future of the NHL?
Jamieson may be correct. If the game continues to alienate its traditional White player and fan bases, those fans may spend their entertainment dollars and their recreational hours elsewhere. Hockey fans have seen their teams moved from their homebases, their traditions trampled on, and their heroes demeaned. However, it is hard to imagine that the game will not continue in some form, as it is too deeply embedded in Canadian culture and Canadian blood not to survive. There is little question that it will suffer the lingering effects of Bettman's poor decisions and a diminished prestige, due to his non-hockey decisions. Ironically, the first signs of the League regaining its health may be its low attendance numbers. Fans are displaying a healthy backlash to the clique of "New York Lawyers" who have so unceremoniously hijacked their game. Undoubtedly, Bettman needs to go. Even leaders in the business world recognize this fact, as he was named one of the "worst" executives by Business Week in 2005. The long honeymoon he has enjoyed with the league was purchased by a press-wing that never had the best interests of the game, nor its fans at heart. (13)
Hockey has deep roots in our White racial spirit, and is played in 17 White countries around the world. Some consider the game of ice hockey a metaphor for our European pilgrimage to the New World, where daily survival was a struggle that demanded incredible teamwork and untameable courage. Settlers faced steep odds as they battled the frozen elements of an unsettled prairie, while maintaining vigilance under constant harassment and attack by savages. The true owners of the game of hockey are its fans and enthusiasts, young and old alike. If hockey is to survive, the White men and women of the West will need to summon some of the courage displayed by their ancestors and throw off the foreign influence of the meddlers who are ruining their sport.
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Notes:
(1) http://www.thehockeynews.com/en/columnist/detail.asp?columni st=186; also, see http://www.cbc.ca/sports/columns/morrison/061018.html
(2) http://proicehockey.about.com/b/a/255966.htm
(3) http://www.nhl.com/nhlhq/cba/cba_ratified072205.html
(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Bettman; also, see http://www.garybettmansucks.com/
(5) http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/
(6) http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmhockey1.html
(7) http://proicehockey.about.com/b/a/218867.htm
(8) http://www.moagandcompany.com/i_a/industry_analysis.pdf
(9) http://www.hockeyresearch.com/mfoster/business/nhl_attn.html
(10) http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0254/is_2_62/ai_1 00202310/pg_1
(11) http://www.jewishsports.com/profiles/influentialjews.htm
(12) http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCM/is_3_30/ai_8 0678770; also see http://www.blackathlete.net/artman/publish/article_02497.sht ml
(13) http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_02/b3915648. htm
[Above article from the pro-White news site nationalvanguard.org]
