NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has the power to giveth and the power to take away.

BY MARK SPECTOR
sportsnet.ca

PEBBLE BEACH - Quebec City wants back into the National Hockey League, so much so that mayor Régis Labeaume went to New York to meet with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.

Jim Balsillie wants to bring a team to Hamilton. The Manitoba Moose owners in Winnipeg are still in regular contact with Bettman, the Ice Edge Holdings group hopes to bring the Phoenix Coyotes to Saskatoon for five games per season, and the NHL hopes to bring an outdoor game to Calgary next year.

It wasn't long ago that NHL teams in Canada were on life support. Today, with a 95-cent dollar, Canada is getting a lot of talk from governors who believe there are profits to be there.

"Our fans are loyal, they have the wherewithal to support their teams, and our buildings are full," Edmonton Oilers president Patrick Laforge said. "I don't think that's a secret. It gets people's attention."

Bettman presided over the relocation of both the Quebec Nordiques and the Winnipeg Jets, then fought the fight to keep the Oilers in Edmonton. Now, talk is of floundering American franchises relocating north of the border.

"The cycles of life never cease to amaze me," he said on Wednesday, as the league's Board of Governors meetings wrapped up at the Inn at Spanish Bay. "Yes, I remember very clearly the prognostications by some of your (media) colleagues that there would be one team left in Canada, and everybody else would be in the United States. And now, the prognostication is, 'No, we've got clubs that need to move out of the United States.' It wasn't right originally, and it's not right now, but it's part of what we deal with."

After the governors were schooled in the NHL's head-injury protocol, you can expect some actual movement on the issue to come when the NHL's general managers meet in March in Florida.

They will likely come up with some type of enforcement, be it a major penalty or suspension, which the governors can ratify in June at the Stanley Cup final meetings.

It is likely the GMs will start by defining hits where the victim clearly is not aware that he is about to be hit. The spirit of the rule will be that, although hockey is a violent game, there is some onus on players to realize when an opponent is in a dangerous situation, and act accordingly.

"To hit a player who can't anticipate or can't avoid (the hit), it's not a safe hit. I think we have to take it out," Toronto Maple Leafs president and general manager Brian Burke said. "To me, there has to be a shift where when a player gets in that position to hit a player and that player is vulnerable and unsuspecting, it's like the stop sign on the back of the jerseys with youth hockey in Canada. At that point you have to pull up. Or hit him, but don't get him in the head."

Burke pointed to the hit by Philadelphia Flyer Mike Richards on Florida Panther David Booth which saw Booth sustain a concussion on the hit from the side. Booth never saw Richards coming.

"The hit on Booth, the player that drilled him could have still drilled him but he didn't have to get him in the head."

We've always said this is a players' issue, and that's likely how it is going to play out - with players asked to touch the brakes now and again. For the health of each other, and the health of the game.

How is an Original Six team like the Boston Bruins looking at the situation in Phoenix?

"I think the commissioner has got this well in hand," Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs said. "I don't think there's any money going out from the Bruins or anybody else. Talking as a Bruin, that's the only interest we have in it, that we're not giving up any funds for it."