[Canucks fans] are the same people who harbour conspiracy theories, who reportedly threw projectiles at Gary Battman on the ice during the Stanley Cup presentation and one who shouted out while rioting that "this is all Bettman's fault!"

Safely shielded behind the Rockies in Edmonton, Terry Jones goes on the best major-media rant against a losing team I've read since Gregg Doyel's 2007 anti-Illinois basketball blast, then castigates the lunacy in the team's immediate orbit before ripping Vancouver's population as a whole for perpetuating a sporting riot trend. The whole column is a good laugh, but calling out the over-the-top reaction to Bettman as a particularly local character flaw drew my notice.

Gord Stellick identified Vancouver's reaction more correctly on XM Home Ice Thursday afternoon as a progression of a perverse new hockey tradition. His wrong turn, though, came in wondering why fans in Anaheim, Carolina and Tampa [sic] had booed Bettman too — paraphrasing, "after all, he's why those teams are there! This whole southern team idea, that's a Bettman thing!"1

It's easy to get things wrong mid-rant on live radio. But fact-checking is what we have the Internet for, and his recollection of pre-lockout winner Tampa in particular turning on Bettman didn't ring true to me. So, to YouTube.

As it turns out, Anaheim briefly booed Bettman's entry in 2007 with lockout wounds still fresh, but got over it quickly as he cracked a joke and announced Scott Niedermayer's Conn Smythe in the same breath.  In 2006 in Raleigh, a recorded fanfare drowned out everything until Bettman began complimenting the celebrating fans; Tampa Bay in 2004 cheered his entry. Sustained arena-wide Bettman-hate didn't get truly started until a string of road team wins: Pittsburgh's loving reaction to the Red Wings' 2008 win when Bettman inexplicably went long-form with his congratulations as the boos swelled, Detroit returning the favor to the Pens in 2009, and Philadelphia fans surprising absolutely no one in 2010 after Chicago won. In all those, post-lockout bitterness made Bettman a good outlet for team-centric frustration, no more.

What neither Stellick nor Jones could get to is that a major difference between Finals fans in Pittsburgh, Detroit and Philly on one hand and Vancouver on the other is the sports media environment they live in. On this side of the border, Gary Bettman is a sideshow we try to ignore. Up North, though, nearly two decades of Canadian media treating Bettman as Canada's Emmanuel Goldstein shapes their behavior. That makes it hard to tell how much of Wednesday night's explosive hatred was Vancouver and how much was a psychosis all of Canada needs to own.

1. Speaking of getting things wrong: The Ducks and Lightning predate Bettman, and Carolina is there because Pete Karmanos (a) bid too low in 1990 for the Tampa Bay expansion franchise that became the Lightning, (b) found the Research Triangle to be on a better economic trajectory than Columbus, Ohio, the other place with a promising arena project in 1997, and (c) once he moved the club, had his sizable ego invested in making hockey work where he had damn well put it.