Лигийн комиссар Гэри Беттманы үйл ажиллагааг хөгжөөн дэмжигчдийн дийлэнх нь эерэг эсвэл дунд түвшинд үнэлжээ.
Хойд Америкийн үндэсний хоккейны лигийн 2025-26 оны улирал өндөрлөснөөс хойш удаагүй байгаа хэдий ч зуны завсарлагааны хугацаанд томоохон солилцоо, гэрээний шинэчлэлтүүд эрчимтэй өрнөж байна. Энэ хүрээнд явуулсан хөгжөөн дэмжигчдийн өргөн хүрээтэй санал асуулгад 20,000 гаруй уншигч оролцож лигийн ирээдүй, дүрэм журам болон үйл ажиллагааны талаар саналаа хуваалцжээ. Оролцогчдын 78.6 хувь нь лигийн өнөөгийн байдалд урам зоригтой эсвэл ирээдүйд итгэлтэй байгаагаа илэрхийлсэн бөгөөд энэ нь тоглолтын хурд, ур чадвар болон өрсөлдөөнтэй холбоотой юм.
Лигийн комиссар Гэри Беттманы 34 дэх улирал дөхөж буй энэ үед хөгжөөн дэмжигчдийн 40 шахам хувь нь түүний ажлыг дунд буюу 3 гэсэн үнэлгээ өгсөн бол түүнээс дээш үнэлсэн хүмүүсийн тоо бага үнэлсэн хүмүүсээс хоёр дахин олон байжээ. Санхүүгийн хувьд лиг амжилттай ажиллаж, цалингийн хязгаар өсөж байгаа нь энэхүү эерэг үнэлгээнд нөлөөлсөн байна. Гэсэн хэдий ч хоккейн спортод бооцоо газар авч буй явдалд оролцогчдын дийлэнх нь тоглолтын шударга ёсонд сөргөөр нөлөөлж болзошгүй хэмээн санаа зовниж буйгаа илэрхийлжээ.
Мужийн орлогын татваргүй багуудын давуу талын асуудал хөгжөөн дэмжигчдийн анхаарлыг татсаар байгаа бөгөөд санал асуулгад оролцогчдын 54 хувь нь үүнийг тэгшитгэх арга хэмжээ авах шаардлагатай гэж үзсэн байна. Мөн тоглогчдын аюулгүй байдлыг хангах газрын шийдвэрт олонх нь сэтгэл хангалуун бус байгаа аж. Тоглогчдын нэр хүндийг өсгөж, маркетингийг сайжруулахын тулд тэднийг илүү нээлттэй байлгаж, зан чанараа харуулах боломжоор хангах хэрэгтэй гэсэн саналууд давамгайлжээ.
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It hasn’t even been two months since the Carolina Hurricanes lifted the Stanley Cup to conclude an epic 2025-26 season, yet it already feels like an eternity ago.
A wild NHL offseason proves how quickly the league is changing — we’ve seen several blockbuster trades, franchise players requesting out, the largest offer sheet in NHL history and a completely reset market for player contracts amid the skyrocketing salary cap.
Is the NHL in a good or bad place? More than 20,000 readers participated in our NHL fan survey. The results are categorized into three areas: the game’s direction, the fan experience and the league’s future on and off the ice. We begin with how participants responded to questions about the state of the sport in 2026 — covering gambling, commissioner Gary Bettman and the hot-button no-state-taxes debate.
Can the Sedins change the Canucks’ culture?
Sean Gentille and Thomas Drance
Which of the following best describes your feelings about the current overall state of the NHL?
Big picture, the NHL appears to be in a very healthy place. We know that the league is doing well financially based on how meteorically the salary cap, which is tied to revenue, is rising, but the product is also clearly resonating with fans.
A vast majority of fans — 78.6 percent — are either “enthusiastic” or “hopeful” about the overall state of the NHL. The game has never been faster and more skilled; historic teenagers Macklin Celebrini and Matthew Schaefer have breathed new life into the sport, and scoring is way higher than it was 10-15 years ago. Games are tight, leads are almost never safe, and there’s good parity and healthy turnover in terms of the teams that make the playoffs each year.
Is the NHL perfect? Definitely not (more on that later). But the macro, 50,000-foot view is mostly positive because of how entertaining the on-ice product is.
Next year will be Gary Bettman’s 34th season as NHL commissioner. That’s a long time, but how would you rate the job he has done overall as NHL commissioner?
The boos won’t ever stop for him at the NHL Draft, but the rating for Bettman’s work as league commissioner is more favorable than you might have expected.
Nearly 40 percent of respondents rated his work as a 3, which is neutral, but the bigger surprise is that twice as many fans scored him at a 4 rather than a 2. In fact, only 22.3 percent of fans rated him below a 3. In other words, while the Bettman dissenters are loud and still a meaningfully large population, most fans believe he’s done a fine or better job.
That satisfaction makes some sense: The on-ice product is excellent, the new CBA was negotiated without any hiccups or disputes, the game’s casual audience is growing with the massively successful 4 Nations tournament and NHLers’ return to the Olympics, and the league is in a very strong position financially.
Is betting on hockey a regular part of your fan experience?
Despite the proliferation of gambling advertisements in almost everything that’s associated with the game, the overwhelming majority of fans do not regularly bet. It was very one-sided, with over 12 non-gamblers for every gambler among our audience.
With the prevalence of gambling in hockey, are you worried about the integrity of the game?
Most fans shared at least some concern about how the prevalence of gambling could affect the integrity of the game. And it makes sense considering the NBA’s earth-shattering scandal, where current and former players were arrested on suspicion of gambling-related offenses. The MLB saw two players arrested last summer for alleged fixing. The NFL recently suspended an Arizona Cardinals executive for violating the league’s gambling policy. The NHL hasn’t been immune either, as Shane Pinto was suspended for 41 games in the 2023-24 season for “activities related to sports wagering,” although the league clarified there was no evidence that Pinto was betting on NHL games.
Are teams with no state income taxes gaining an unfair advantage?
The majority of fans believe teams such as Florida, Vegas, Tampa Bay and Dallas gain an unfair edge because they don’t have state income taxes. That’s consistent with our 2024 survey, in which only 14.7 percent of respondents viewed it as an overblown issue. The debate and differing views start, however, when we discuss how much of an advantage it truly is and whether the league needs to do anything about it.
Is the no state income taxes issue something that needs to be addressed by the league?
This is where the results get fascinating. Back in 2024, 42.9 percent of voters thought the advantage was large enough that it warranted some intervention from the league to even the playing field. However, a nearly equal 41.5 percent voted that while these teams have an edge, it’s not significant enough to warrant potentially complex changes.
Two years later, the appetite for change continues to gradually increase. More than half — 54 percent — of voters said they’d like the league to do something to solve the no-state-taxes issue, with only 26 percent arguing against changes. With that said, the NHL doesn’t seem to believe it’s an unfair advantage, and the next CBA won’t be negotiated for a few more years anyway.
The Department of Player Safety…
Fans across the board seem mostly unhappy with the league’s Department of Player Safety, with 64 percent voting that its decisions are inconsistent, and an additional 16 percent saying it “mostly gets it wrong.”
This especially became a hot-button issue a few months ago, when Radko Gudas hit Auston Matthews with a brutal knee-on-knee. That hit ended Matthews’ season, but, controversially, Gudas was suspended for only five games. That drew sharp criticism from Matthews’ agent, Judd Moldaver, and even Connor McDavid opined that there’s a lot of frustration with the process from the player side.
What can the NHL do to better market its stars?
The biggest theme here revolved around encouraging players to be less buttoned up and show their personalities more.
“Tell their stories outside of the game,” wrote one fan. “More access.”
“Put them in commercials that don’t have horrible dialogue, get them on talk shows, promote rivalries, allow them to actually speak and not basically force all of them to give canned answers,” wrote another. “But to do that, the NHL needs to create an environment where individuality (and) actual opinions (are encouraged) and every little word won’t be picked apart by the media and blown to the extreme. We get canned answers because players don’t want to rock the boat or deal with the fallout. So all we get is boring, robotic interactions, which don’t sell star players one bit.”
Personality is clearly the key to marketing stars better, but it’s tricky to solve because hockey’s culture is very team-first and drawing attention to yourself as an individual can sometimes be misconstrued.
There are clearly more behind-the-scenes videos that teams are producing and docuseries-style content through Amazon’s “Faceoff: Inside the NHL” series, but the NHL lags far behind the other sports in player-created content. Soccer superstar Erling Haaland has become one of the most likable athletes on the planet because of his candid, humorous social media content, and NBA stars such as Giannis Antetokounmpo make their own YouTube videos, but there isn’t as much of that happening in the NHL.
It’s also fair to wonder if hockey players are just less interesting personalities on average than their peers in other sports.
“It’s not the NHL’s fault,” one fan wrote. “Hockey players are humble, and that’s what we love about them.”
If you were commissioner for a day, what is one change you would immediately make?
Changing the playoff format back to a No. 1 through No. 8 conference seeding was by far the most popular answer here, as it was mentioned over 2,500 times. Most players prefer this over the divisional format as well, so it’s a bit strange that the league has dug its heels in on this matter.
Altering the points system to a 3-2-1 style, where three points are awarded for a regulation win, two points for an overtime or shootout win and one point for an OT or shootout loss, was the second most commonly proposed rule change.
Addressing the consistency of officiating was a recurring theme, as well.
“Call the rulebook more closely, no makeup calls, no bias against younger players,” said one voter. Others added that the officiating standard changes from the regular season to the playoffs, and that time remaining in the game seems to have too much influence on calls, with refs more reluctant to call penalties late in third periods of close games.
Hundreds of people called for the salary cap to be tweaked to address the state income tax disparity.
Many also suggested there’s a need to create a better, more consistent standard for goaltender interference calls and reviews.
