TERM LIMITS

With political talk having dominated news cycles and American psyches’ for the last year or so I got to thinking about the fact that no matter how phenomenally successful, or polarizingly inept a U.S. President is he only gets 4 years at a time in the big office - and 8 years total at the most.

So the question pertaining to the NHL becomes; should there be a “term limit” on the Commissioner’s office? And if so, then should there also be a limit on the time any one individual heads the NHL Players Association? Would the game be better served with this idea in place? Would more get done? Would views be broader? Would it be worse? Lots of queries.

Take the current Commish for instance. If you were to break Gary Bettman’s tenure into 4-year segments he would be approaching the end of his fourth term.

Too many? Not according to the people who have kept him in power – the NHL owners, and in fairness to him he could rattle off a laundry list of league accomplishments under his watch.

But be that as it may, would the commissioner’s office be more pro-active in improving the game for all involved if it was faced with a finite amount of time to get his (or her) vision accomplished. And would the Commissioner then lean less toward serving at the teat of the owners who keep him in power and instead gravitate more to the middle, thus truly becoming the “Commissioner of the NHL/NHLPA”?

They are currently debating term limits for the Senate and Congress, probably for some similar reasons I have stated above.

Tell me Edge-ites, would this be a good idea for the NHL?