Gary Bettman chides Paul Bissonnette over ‘ridiculous' NHL state tax concern
Bissonnette, who played in the NHL and minor league hockey before launching his media career, had previously expressed the concern following the Panthers' Eastern Conference Final series-clinching victory over the Hurricanes on TNT.
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TNT hockey analyst Anson Carter pushed back almost immediately when Bissonnette brought it up, and Bettman was forceful in his dismissal of it when he broached the subject on Monday night.
Gary Bettman is pictured during the TNT broadcast on June 9. Screengrab via X/@awfulannouncing
'When the Florida teams weren't good, which was for about 17 years, OK, nobody said anything about it,' Bettman said before puck drop on Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Panthers and Oilers. 'For those of you that played, were you sitting there with a tax table? No, you wanted to go to a good organization in a place you wanted to live where you wanted to raise your kids and send them to school. You wanted to play in a first-class arena with a first-class training facility with an owner, an organization, a GM and a coach that you were comfortable with.
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'And you wanted to have good teammates so you would have a shot at winning. That's what motivates. Could it be a little bit of a factor if everything else were equal? I suppose, but that's not it. By the way, state taxes high in Los Angeles, high in New York. What are we going to do, subsidize those teams?'
Paul Bissonnette is pictured June 9. Getty Images
While Bettman seemed to slam dunk on Bissonnette during the segment, the hockey analyst took it in stride and even chimed in on social media with a post on X in response to a clip of the segment.
'Get the people talking. Look at that engagement. Throwing Gary softballs,' Bissonnette wrote on X.
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