There was an old public service announcement that ran late at night several years ago. In it, the father bursts into his son's room to discover his son is doing drugs.  The father demands to know where the son picked up such a bad habit. The son replies  "from you, I learned it from you!"

The NHL took a page out of the NBA playbook by not suspending Marian Hossa for at least a game for his hit in the back of Nashville's Dan Hamhuis on Saturday.  I'm sure that the league wouldn't want to suspend a star in a tight series on a team that plays in the third largest media market i the country and has rabid fans who watch on TV.  In other words, the league has no intention of having Nashville win the series because Chicago is a much more important market. 

If you don't believe that, you are naive and don't understand that politics and revenue are far more important to the NHL than integrity.

In a league struggling to get back to the top tier of American sports consciousness, Chicago is a critical battleground.  With the Sox and Cubs having slow starts and the Bulls with one foot and four toes out the door in their playoff series with Cleveland, the NHL needs something good to happen for the Hawks.  They need the Hawks to go deep into the playoffs and possibly compete in the Stanley Cup finals, preferably against Washington or Pittsburgh.  This means big ratings for the league and their broadcast partners and more national attention.

Ground Marion Hossa now and the Hawks may not be able to take out the pesky Preds.  And for the NHL, a big splash in Chicago is far more important than the feel good story of the little engine that could.  The way it's going, Nashville may not even be an NHL market in five years while Chicago is an original six team.  The league desperately needs to win the hearts and minds of Chicago again and win back the market share it lost in the 90's when Michael Jordan was winning championships for the Bulls while Bill Wirtz and Bob Pulford fiddled. 

Lest you forget, NHL commish Gary Bettman learned at the elbow of the biggest charlatain of all, NBA commissioner David Stern.  Too bad Bettman didn't learn from Roger Goodell.