Bettman discovers Cup has been won

NEW YORK, NY — National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman was delighted yesterday to hear that one of the thirty teams in his league had won the Stanley Cup.

“Oh really? That’s great! I lost track of the NHL after we agreed to the television deal with the Competition Network or whatever it’s called. Hey, have you been watching the NBA playoffs? LeBron is, like, crazy good.”

Outside of Canada and toothless, mullet-wearing freaks in the far reaches of northern Maine, Vermont and New York State, little attention has been paid to the NHL by anyone. Most U.S. newspapers elected not to send any reporters to cover this year’s Stanley Cup Finals, citing a conflict with internally-run programs including a book club, a knitting circle, and a Sopranos finale discussion group.

The numbers support the media’s interest in almost everything else. Ratings for the finals plummeted 20% from last year, despite the final two games being aired on NBC. As of press time, NBC was immediately available on every television set sold in the United States and Canada.

Many critics have blamed the league’s struggles on an ineffective marketing campaign. When asked about the criticism, Director of Marketing Bob McKenzie responded, “I don’t know, maybe it’s not working. I’ll take a closer look at it once my fantasy football draft is over.”

Commissioner Bettman, however, believes the league is on the right track, as he stated in a recent conference call with the Prince Edward Island Gazette and the Buffalo Ceramics Bureau’s Monthly E-blast,

“The NHL is as healthy and strong and cool and great as it ever was. People will discover this league and, when they do, we’ll be right up there with baseball, basketball and foosball…oh wait, that’s ‘football’…couldn’t read my own writing there.”

Later, when asked what he thought of the play of Jean-Sebastien Giguere, the starting goalie for the champion Anaheim Ducks, Bettman said, “I don’t know, I didn’t watch the French Open.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!