The NHL’s lost cause in the South

Ray Ratto adds his booming voice to those condemning Gary Bettman for the largely failed Southern Strategy:

“It was a disaster born of eagerness to expand the product, reliant entirely as it turned out on the team’s ability to play for the Stanley Cup. There were sellouts in Miami when the Panthers were good, and sellouts in Tampa when the Lightning was good, and there are sellouts in Raleigh when the Hurricanes are good. And by good, we mean deep-into-the-playoffs good.

“Now if you want to rig results so that keeps happening, the Southern strategy worked. But for the most part, no. Carolina is a probable success, and Dallas will be for as long as Tom Hicks stays out of debtor’s prison. Colorado had a long run that finally ended last year.

“But Phoenix? No. Nashville? No. The Floridas? No. Atlanta? No. Even Columbus after a fast start looks more and more like a no. Bettman’s fascination with Americanizing the audience has done the one thing a commissioner cannot do — it needlessly used up the dwindling supply of multimillionaires in North America on lost causes.

“And that doesn’t even involve the owners who went to jail for one reason or another.”