Conspiracy in the NHL: Bet(man) on It.

That loud bang that you heard in the basement of that dank room was the sound of the conspiracy theory machine being started up for the first time in a while.

Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory. That is why there are a million different conspiracy theories surrounding the death of President Kennedy; well that and the incredibly sketchy circumstances surrounding his death, but that’s for another day. Conspiracies are the same thing as rumors. Well, conspiracies are like rumors if those rumors were on steroids while drinking red bull and taking a bath in HGH.

Today the conspiracy theory machine is here to tackle the ineptitude behind the NHL lockout. Since Commissioner Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr seem to have their heads so far up their hindquarters that they can’t even talk about ending the lockout, it is impossible to keep the conspiracies away.

Here is the best theory the machine came up with and one that makes the “Killer KGB” theory look stupid: Bettman was planted to run the NHL by NBA commissioner David Stern in order to single handedly ruin the sport.

Now before you try to find where the conspiracy theory machine and go all office space on it, consider the following.

Bettman was first brought into the NBA in 1981 to serve in the league offices as a marketing and legal consultant. The Betts also eventually rose to third in command in the NBA before finally placing himself as the personal assistant and Senior Vice President of Commissioner Stern.

On February 1, 1993, the NHL hired an executive search firm to help find a new commissioner, wait for it, at the exact same time that then president Gil Stein was appointed NHL president. Since Stein did not have the best interests of the owners at heart the NHL, hockey decides to look for a new face to run the league. An article by Joe Lapointe of The New York Times explains that Bettman is brought in order to “modernize the views of the ‘old-guard’ within the ownership ranks”

Bettman was elected to be the league’s first commissioner by the NHL governors at the end of 1992 and Stein bowed out of the race to be the first commissioner in order to avoid a destructive battle with the league. So Bettman now has the power of the NHL president and one year after getting hired by the NHL, the 1994-1995 lockout that lasted 104 days happens.

Meanwhile in the NBA during that time there were a couple of major events in the sport. While the NHL was locked out in 1994-1995, Michael Jordan came out of retirement and began his second assent to greatness, Moses Malone retired, the Celtics played their last season in the Boston Garden, and Hakeem Olajuwon’s Houston Rockets beat Patrick Ewing’s New York Knicks in the NBA Finals.

The Rockets Knicks NBA Finals scored a Nielsen Rating of 12.4 when Bettman locked out the players in 1994-1995. As we all know, Jordan began to run rampant in the NBA shortly after and it saw ratings that touched the moon on the way into space.

Today, Bettman has his league in its third elongated work stoppage during his tenure and the NBA is enjoying the apex of LeBron James’ career.

So Stern screwed over his main competition for weekly ratings by planning a mole (Bettman) in the sport to destroy it from the inside out.

Seems legit.