I’ve held off on thrashing the NHL on this one… mainly because I thought they’d come to their senses. This is the league that is televised on Versus -which I believe also features basket-weaving competitions and thumb wrestling, held their All-Star game on a weeknight, and had a pivotal came of their championship series outdone ratings-wise by “Build a Better Burger” on the Food Network… although personally I am intrigued and am curious as how to improve on my burger-building skills. I thought that they’d change their minds, I thought that the criticism would affect them. What the hell… I guess I gave them too much credit by assuming a minimal level of intelligence.

Nope, Gary Bettman and the NHL are going full steam ahead on their plans to feature the NHL in an outdoor game, thinking that the gimmick might help drive press, badly needed PR, as well as television ratings that they would kill their own firstborns to get. Really, I think I liked the idea better when Michigan and Michigan State came up with it, but it’s a helluva lot better than having an All-Star game on a Wednesday, so I figured - again - that they were displaying the kind of competencies that one might expect from an 8th grader.

“There is something very special about taking hockey out into the elements, back to its roots, back to the place where so many boys and girls first learned to love the game,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said on the stadium’s bright green turf, which will be transformed into an ice rink.

“We were overdue for another one but we needed the right place, the right teams and the right time and we found them all,” Bettman said. “Plain and simple, we are doing this to have some fun.”

Well, if by the “right time” Bettman is referring to the same date that the Outback Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Gator Bowl, Capitol One Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl are being played then I really have to seriously question Mr. Bettman’s ability to tie his own shoes. I just don’t get it; it almost seems at times like Bettman is trying to fail - as if the entire NHL was trying to fail. It’s like a large-scale version of The Producers… and I suppose in that analogy Gary Bettman is the Nazi screenwriter.

Anyway, I think we need to start calling Gary “Yarg Namtteb” because everything Bettman does - every single thing - is totally ass backwards. At least to his credit I don’t think he had a hand in creating the new Sharks unis. They screwed that one up all on their own.

• Sabres to host Penguins in outdoor game (AP)