To boo or not to boo?

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/10/2011 (5113 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

How did you feel when the fans in Vancouver booed NHL commissioner Gary Bettman at this year’s Stanley Cup final?

Embarrassed? Vengeful? Classy? Low rent? There are many choices but I know I kind of squirmed in my chair and said at the time to my friends, “That’s bulls .”

It’s just my opinion, and I know most Winnipeggers will have one on the subject, but if there’s an opportunity to greet Bettman on Sunday it should be part of our celebration and not a regurgitation of misguided emotional hostility.

The world will be watching us. We can choose to throw up all over ourselves or we can put an emphatic stamp on our arrival as a member once again of hockey’s elite cities. Let’s show we belong and act like it. Not like petulant children or the hoods that rioted in Vancouver. We’re better than that. We got what we wanted. Why not dump the anger and put our best foot forward?

“It’s not something we’ve obsessed over. It’s come up. We sure hope that what happened in Van at Game 7 doesn’t happen here. I think that would be really embarrassing,” Jets owner Mark Chipman said Wednesday, when asked how he would like fans to respond to Bettman’s presence in Winnipeg on Sunday.

Chipman has invited Bettman into his house and we can make the guest welcome or spurn him. Chipman, the man most responsible for the return of the Jets to our city, will be sitting with Bettman and would directly feel any jeers directed at the commissioner.

Do we want his lasting memory of this day to be the hot sting of embarrassment as a result of our treatment of his visitor? Can you imagine the Jumbotron panning to Bettman and Chipman, followed by the sound of boos in the rink? I would think not. Rather, we should give Chipman something to be proud of in his moments of reflection on this day.

“I would hope it would be a very warm applause,” said Chipman. “I don’t expect people to jump out of their seats, but I would expect it would be a warm response.

“I’ve said this I don’t know how many times or ways, that (Bettman) kind of put his chips on us several years ago and gave us the room, probably ahead of others, to do this,” he added. “He took us at face value early on so I think he absolutely played a role in the team coming back to Winnipeg. I don’t know his private conversations but he certainly was an advocate for it.”

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Some folks blame Bettman for the Jets leaving in the first place. Despite not being responsible for the Winnipeg Arena growing obsolete and local ownership wanting to sell the team and no one willing to buy and keep the club here, Bettman is accused of stealing our team and being anti-Canadian.

“And it just became a self-perpetuating feeling, easy to pile on, easy to do. I’ve never, ever got that feeling from him. The first words he ever uttered to me about a team coming back to Winnipeg was that he’d like to right a wrong,” said Chipman. “I don’t know why he chose those words, but he did.”

Of all the conjecture on this subject, there is one certainty: Gary Bettman could have kept a franchise out of Winnipeg until his stay in office ended, but he chose to bring the NHL back to Winnipeg.

That deserves thanks, so let’s let him hear it.

gary.lawless@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @garylawless