Alexander Ovechkin. Sidney Crosby.

They’re the NHL’s two marquee players. And they hate each other.

Forty Percent.

That’s how many cable subscribers had the opportunity to watch these players and their respective teams do battle for seven games to win the right to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals.

As elementary math will tell you, Sixty Percent of cable subscribers do not get Versus, the primary carrier of the NHL playoffs this season and the previous three seasons. Have you wondered lately, or anytime in the past four years, what happened to hockey and why it isn’t on TV anymore?

Answer: Hockey never left TV, it’s just only on 40 percent of TVs with cable.

With all do respect to the probably great people who work over there, Versus is basically the Detroit Lions of cable channels. That’s bad news for hockey fans, and for sports fans across the board who will tune in to any sport come playoff time to watch a good, competitive series with the top players in a sport. I’m at best a casual hockey fan, but having more free time then I’d like, I’ve been tuning into Versus the past month to watch the NHL playoffs for the same reasons sports fans in general might tune in. A sport I do not care about whatsoever is soccer, but come World Cup time, I’ll watch, because it’s the World Cup, the premier event of a top sport featuring its best players.

Perhaps this season more than ever, the presence of the NHL Playoffs on Versus has proven to be a disaster to the sport. The reality is (take it from Jack, who has watched quite a bit of playoff hockey this season and has followed the sport over the years at least enough to talk intelligently about it) this year’s NHL playoffs have been awesome. Among the best ever probably (I defer to the other fine writers of Taking Back Sports to offer a more precise ranking of these playoffs in the historical realm). Even ESPN — which is second only to Gary Bettman in responsibility for you, the fan, missing playoff hockey — is giving the NHL a lot of airtime on it’s various programs. (Editor’s Note: Gary Bettman isn’t the only dim-witted commissioner out there.)

I’ve also been following the NBA playoffs very closely, as my loyal readers well know. And I must say, in spite of not getting Versus in HD on my top-of-the-line package with Cox Communications (if anyone who works for Cox is reading this, I mentioned the name of my cable service on purpose for a reason), I have enjoyed watching the NHL playoffs almost as much as the NBA playoffs. Allow me to briefly recap all of the great things that have happened so far in the NHL Playoffs:

Ovechkin leads the Capitals back from a 3-1 deficit against the Rangers to win in 7 in round one.

Bitter rivals, the Flyers and the Penguins met in round one. Pens won in six tough games.

The sixth-seeded Hurricanes knock off the No. 1 seed Bruins in seven games in round two after upsetting the Devils in round one in another seven-game series.

The No. 8 Ducks knock off the top-seeded Sharks in round one to meet the Red Wings in round two. This has become one of the great rivalries in hockey this decade, as the teams have won the last two Stanley Cups. The Wings outlasted the Ducks in 7.

“Sid the Kid” and Ovechkin square off in Round 2. The Pens score the minor upset (based on seeding), crushing the Caps in D.C. in Game 7.

Nothing gets sports fans more jacked up then the excitement of a Game 7  in any sport (maybe Phil Jackson isn’t a sports fan anymore). The NHL has already had five, and there are two more rounds of playoffs to go.

This year’s NBA playoffs had an all-time series between the Celtics and Bulls, as well as two other good ones in Boston-Orlando and L.A.-Houston. The Hawks and Heat also went seven games in round one, but that series was not that exciting and of little consequence because everyone knew the winner of that series would get smoked by LeBron and Co. — which is exactly what happened. That’s only four Game 7s (not that that is weak by any standards, but that’s less than the NHL this year).

NHL Commish Gary Bettman and the Boss from Dilbert. Two beacons of mismanagement and stupidity. Speaking of ideas and marketing, are those words even in Bettman's vocabulary?

The NHL playoffs also have storylines this year that are just as intriguing as the NBA playoffs’. For the first time in a long time, the NHL playoffs have been worth watching.  Unfortunately, many can’t because of Gary Bettman, the dimwitted commissioner of the NHL.

A figure familiar to many who’ve worked in an office environment, the Boss from Dilbert, is a striking comparison. Dilbert fans out there (including yours truly) know how incompetent, lousy, and mundane a manager the Boss is. For those non-Dilbert fans, we’re not looking at Al Davis stupid, we’re looking at worse! The Boss in Dilbert has no common sense, no ability, no talent, and in all of the years of the comic, has accomplished nothing and has made life miserable for everyone around him.

With that brief description, I introduce Bettman, the man who has ruined not only the NHL, but the entire sport of hockey (at least this country). After the lockout that cancelled the 2004-05 season, ESPN declined to renew its option to broadcast NHL games. Bettman then negotiated a deal that landed the NHL on … Versus? That’s the best you could do, Bettman, commissioner of a major sport? Worse, NBC got the rights to certain weekend and playoff games for FREE! Charge them something, Bettman, even if it’s just a nominal amount!

So this is why many of you reading may have in fact only seen a handful of NHL playoff games this postseason. Because the commissioner, in a desperation move to get games on the air after the lockout — which he caused by years of mismanagement of the league and ensuing losses — made a long-term deal with Versus in exchange for a few beans that haven’t grown into giant beanstalks.

Talk about a “master of panic.” With all due respect to Stan Van Gundy, who has lately been a shining representative of his Shaq-anointed title, Bettman was even more of one. Van Gundy has one more game to prevent ruining an entire team’s season by being a “master of panic,” but Bettman has ruined an entire league and it’s associated sport.

Did Bettman seriously think he could grow a disgruntled fan-base post-lockout by putting the NHL on a station few people get, let alone watch if they have it? Worse, the long-term survival of the sport in this country is in danger because of this move. Young kids aren’t watching hockey on Versus, so I can’t help but wonder: Will there be a next generation of hockey fans in this country?

Sadly, Bettman probably did think this. This is the same Bettman who actually thought the NHL could succeed in the state of Arizona. Let’s see how much longer until the Coyotes hail from Southern Ontario.

Bettman did not, nor did he have to, do anything to generate what has been a terrific postseason for the NHL at a time that the league – and the sport — need it more than ever in this country. The only problems are that Bettman has deprived viewers the opportunity to see the playoffs, and Bettman has done no marketing of the sport – even with two great young stars in Crosby and Ovechkin.

Speaking of marketing, the quote from the Boss in the comic sounds very familiar to something Bettman would say, if he even has a Director of Marketing …