The time has come for yours truly to branch out a little. Wonderpod-Online was always intended to be a catch all site, on top of home to the podcast. Each member of our staff knows they are welcome to write about whatever makes them happy. I never take advantage of this fact and it annoys me at times. It gets in the way of being lazy and unproductive. Then you have to spell words and make sentence things. Well that changes today. The first subject I want to rant about has been on my mind a while. It concerns pro sport’s of all things. Oh lord a nerd talking about sports, the Mayans are correct!

Self sarcasm aside, I do watch more sports than I ever discuss. I am a big hockey fan, enjoy the playoffs in baseball and basketball. Football (American) is hit or miss for me and Football(Euro) is a little more consistent. Now that you know my brief back ground in main stream sport’s there is something I just don’t get and it goes back to last year.

When the NFL was locked out I never could get use to everybody thrashing the commissioner Roger Goodell. I don’t care what your opinion is of him now, I specifically mean during the lock out. Because let’s be honest all any commissioner is during a labor negotiation, is a messenger for the owners. The same thing is happening right now with the NHL and Gary Bettman. I see fans going absolutely bonkers on the NHL commissioner. When in reality the players and owners are the parties actually negotiating.

So why do the fans go cray on the commissioner every time there is a labor issue? The simple answer is he is a meat shield for the whole sport. The owners are not stupid men they want to distract the fans from hating them. It is a brilliant ploy if you just look around the world of hockey right now. There is a whole web site dedicated to firing Bettman, because he is the problem. Again the reality, is a bunch of rich owners and pampered players are more of the problem then Bettman in this case. Remember we are talking about labor negotiations. The commissioner of any pro sport can be and should held accountable in other executive decisions. When it comes to Collective Bargaining Agreement talks they are just a mouth piece for the owners. Mind you an overly paid mouth piece, but a mouth piece all the same. I threw that in one more time for the “critics” who may be a little slow to understand.

If all that didn’t convince you that commissioner’s are not your enemy take this little test at home. Without cheating you bunch of bastards. Name five owners or even general managers in your favorite pro sport. I bet anything over ninety percent of you can’t even come close without using Google. So when overly emotional fans need a target they fire volley’s at the sports leader. Some times it’s fair and some times its not. There I feel better about that and I will leave you with even more crap.

I admit I am far far to lazy to get worked up emotionally about the current labor mess in the NHL. Will either get a season or we won’t. This isn’t going to make NHL fans happy, but I actually think Bettman has the worst commissioner slot of the sports here in the United States. He is the head of the number four sport with owners who want to make the same amount of cash as the number one sport (the NFL). That ain’t going to happen, but they are going to have a third lock out anyway. Remember fans the commissioner is a mouth piece and the owners are dicks. McGee Out!!