Gary Bettman Year Quotations

I respect our players. They're prepared to forgo $1 billion in salaries this year alone and maybe hundreds of millions -- if not a billion -- next year. You've got to respect that. I don't always understand it, but I respect it.

Our players play all year for their NHL teams. We, as an accommodation to the Olympics, take a break. We're going to go, but to the extent players are injured it becomes a very personal decision as to what the right thing to do is. And I don't think people should second-guess them.

For me, I prefer to stay in the moment. I'm not looking for a fight. I'm looking for a solution to the economic issues confronting our game. Idle threats will not address these issues. We have a year remaining on the current collective bargaining agreement and, used properly, that is more than ample time in which to negotiate a new agreement. The National Hockey League has been prepared and remains prepared to begin formal collective bargaining negotiations on a moment's notice.

In many quarters, there was a constant suggestion over the last year that the situation we found ourselves in would result in tremendous damage and that's not the case,

If you want to judge this (TV deal) on one year experience, I don?t think you?re being fair. Over time, we think we are going to see continued improvement on the cable coverage.

The cynics were predicting that by taking a year off, which obviously is something nobody wanted to do, we would have destroyed our following and our fans would never come back,