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opinion

Residents of Calgary will elect their mayor and city councillors in two weeks' time, and now Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the National Hockey League, has inexcusably insinuated himself into the campaign.

Doing so represents an appalling lack of judgment from someone who absolutely knows better.

Incumbent Mayor Naheed Nenshi – who is seeking re-election to a third term – appears to have angered hockey's chief potentate by refusing to cede to the Calgary Flames' patently unreasonable demands for a new publicly funded arena.

Apparently, it's payback time.

Mr. Bettman met with Mr. Nenshi last spring, and this week he provided his version of events to a sympathetic Calgary newspaper columnist.

According to Mr. Bettman, the mayor said he does not believe sports franchises and arenas are central to a city's economic well-being (if that's what Mr. Nenshi believes, he's right), and outlined "the terms of a deal that I knew were just not from the real world."

Sports leagues are shameless about squeezing politicians into dipping into the public purse, so in his interview Mr. Bettman added a threat regarding the Flames' future: "They're not moving this season, but I don't know how long they can hang on."

On a visit to Calgary earlier this month, Mr. Bettman implied that if, anyone disagrees with Mr. Nenshi's position on the arena, they should express it at the ballot box.

That was bad. Trashing an elected official in public to influence the final stretch of an election campaign is worse.

In case Mr. Bettman's intentions aren't clear by now, Mr. Nenshi offered his own takeaway from the March meeting to the Calgary Sun: "He intimated it is the end of a political career if you lose a hockey team."

Perhaps Mr. Bettman has acquired Canadian citizenship and a Calgary address and is entitled to vote in the election.

Or maybe he's just obsessed with Calgary politics. But if that were true he'd have a better grasp of the local attitude toward blackmail.

"I don't weigh into politics," Mr. Bettman said this week.

Yeah, right.

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