How Gary Bettman avoids 'Moonlight' Oscars gaffe at Draft Lottery
The NHL Draft Lottery was held in Toronto on Saturday night, with the New Jersey Devils winning it and the Colorado Avalanche … not winning it.
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The lottery was a Sportsnet presentation, and the network used that access to great effect. Something worth your time: This Mike Johnston piece from Sportsnet.ca that goes behind the scenes of the lottery with commissioner Gary Bettman. A few items of note:
* Cell phones and recording devices are placed in personally labeled manila envelopes. It’s like a movie screening!
* The lottery itself takes 10 minutes. Putting the cards in order that deputy commissioner Bill Daly reveals to the cameras apparently takes much longer, and is personally supervised by Bettman.
The next step was equally important: Making sure the team cards were in the correct order for the television broadcast. That process took nearly three times as long as the lottery itself since they double- and triple-check the order and Bettman was involved in every step along the way.
“I just want to make sure the procedure goes right. That there’s no problem; that there’s no controversy,” Bettman said. “You never want to be in a situation where the wrong logo is in the wrong place like the Academy Awards or what happened to Miss Universe, so I just want to make sure that everything goes smoothly. The results are the results. We have a lottery that tries to keep this as random as possible, weighted of course, but at the end of the day whoever wins wins.”
This is reassuring and a little surprising, given that the NHL would totally be the League where Ray Shero is doing a victory interview, Bill Daly whispers in his ear and Shero suddenly says “Guys, guys, I’m sorry. No. There’s a mistake … Joe Sakic, you guys won best picture, er, the draft lottery.”
* Finally, our favorite moment of the piece was this exchange:
[Bettman] eventually approached me and asked, “So, what did you think?”
I respond: “Well, the number six was the only number to pop up three times and the Devils won. Coincidence?”
Bettman chuckles and raises his eyebrows. “The number of the devil.”
Don’t mess with the Devils man.
I really hope this means Bettman had a collection of Iron Maiden albums in the 1980s.
Read the full story here, as it’s fun.
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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
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