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Rozner: NHL's next commish could be here in Chicago

Gary Bettman should send Roger Goodell a thank-you note.

Only in the last month have people forgotten that Bettman has been the most disliked commissioner in sports nearly since the moment he left the NBA and put on an NHL cap.

At least temporarily, Goodell is entirely the focus.

But there has been enough turnover in the commissioner ranks of late that it seems a good time to consider what might be next.

David Stern lasted 30 years, before stepping down seven months ago and handing the NBA to Adam Silver, his right-hand man.

Bud Selig made his temporary position last 22 years, and in a couple months he gives the title to Rob Manfred, his right-hand man.

Goodell just passed eight years on the job and doesn't appear likely to make nine, but he hasn't been around long enough to have a right-hand man that will succeed him. Even if there were such a person, he or she would surely be tainted by recent scandals.

Bettman has been running the NHL for 21 years and his greatest accomplishment to date is that by the time the lockout ended in 2013, Bettman had canceled roughly 2,000 games, or about 10 percent of scheduled games since becoming commissioner.

Soon, he will become the longest-tenured commissioner and it seems a certainty that if he were to step down - and thus far there has been no such talk - his right-hand man, Bill Daly, would certainly be the favorite to take over.

The irony is that Bettman was hired because of his NBA marketing skills, which were mostly riding the coattails of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan, who saved the NBA when it was in a deep hole.

Bettman came in charged with selling hockey in the U.S., expanding the league and ending labor unrest.

No, really, that was his mandate, and how's that working out for the NHL?

Bettman has spent much of his tenure locking out the players while trying to punish big-market teams in the North, teams willing to spend to win regardless of cost.

But the salary cap doesn't make fans attend games or force warm-weather owners to manage better or spend wisely, and every time there's been a work stoppage - essentially a fight between owners - Bettman has said the results were perfect and the game fixed.

A few years later, there's always another painful lockout.

So now what?

The guess here is that Bettman is considering how much longer he wants to do it and planting the seeds for Daly to take over.

Much like Manfred, Daly has angered players and fans alike with his stance and comments during labor disputes, and it remains to be seen how much support he will have when the time comes for Bettman to vacate.

The NHL will soon have to expand or contract, and certainly it will be the former, not the latter. The league is two teams short in the West and has devised a playoff format that only the NHL could imagine, one where a wild-card team in a divisional playoff format can wind up in the other conference division and become that division's playoff champion.

Only in the NHL, right?

The NHL remains the NHL because it rarely thinks outside the box. It does what it does and sneers at anyone who suggests it move into the 21st century when it comes to marketing, selling and televising.

It's our cute little game, they say, and no one needs to tell us how to run our game.

But if it wants to make a serious move and try something radical, why not go outside New York when it searches for the next commissioner? The NHL can hire a guy right here in Chicago, someone who has made a career of marketing, selling and inventing.

John McDonough might not have come up a hockey guy, but then again, he wasn't a soccer guy when he joined the Chicago Sting, wasn't a baseball guy when he turned the Cubs into a marketing power, and he wasn't a hockey guy when he took over a Blackhawks operation set in the 1950s, a mere 50 years behind the times.

Never mind the Internet generation, the Hawks had entirely skipped the TV generation, and look at what McDonough's done in short period of time, historically speaking.

In 2007 when he arrived, the Hawks were ranked 118th out of 122 professional teams in an ESPN franchise survey. Today, they are No. 10 and tops in Chicago.

The Hawks aren't just back on the NHL marketing map. They are at the epicenter of the hockey universe and it's no accident.

If there is a hope for the NHL, it won't rest in the hands of another New York insider who considers business as usual another lockout and another team in Florida or California.

They need someone who understands the business and marketing side.

So maybe next time they'll shoot higher. Maybe next time the NHL will get it right.

• Hear Barry Rozner on WSCR 670-AM and follow him @BarryRozner on Twitter.

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