Do you hate Gary Bettman?

Good, because that's his job. Loather-in-chief. A sponge for your abhorrence, a deflector shield for whomever that hatred should be actually directed towards.

It's a rite of passage for a National Hockey League fan to blame every problem great or miniscule on Bettman because it feels right; Bettman is to bile as a teddy bear is to love — a magnet for such things.

I'm as guilty as anyone. Back when I was writing a web column called "The Jester's Quart", it was described as a "weekly satirical look at sports, pop culture and why NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is a jackass." Because, in my eyes, he was. I used to blame him for, like, the puck over the glass rule. It was that level of blind rage.

But as Bettman's commissionership reaches its 20th anniversary on Tuesday, many of us have changed our views on him. Not that there isn't anything to loathe — oh, for the love of all that is holy and hockey, is there stuff to loathe — but because Gary Bettman shouldn't take the blame for every mistake, misstep and lingering problem that faces the National Hockey League in 2012.

It's not that he's done poorly as commissioner, because the facts bear out that he hasn't.

So what's his legacy?

That he didn't maximize the opportunities that were in front of him. That the NHL's full potential as an entertainment product in the U.S. has never been achieved. That it has had growth, but could have grown so much larger.

Which was, in fact, Bettman's mandate back on Dec. 12, 1992.

Gary Bettman was nothing you'd expect from a National Hockey League commissioner, and yet was everything the NHL needed when he was hired 20 years ago.

He was a basketball guy, serving as senior vice-president and general counsel of the NBA for eight of his 11 years with the Association. He was the antithesis of the Canadian stereotype that fueled xenophobia about the NHL in the U.S. — a tart New York lawyer who appeared to have slightly less experience with hockey than Manute Bol. (Somewhat ironically, he was also the third straight American hired to head the League.)

He didn't look the part, but he fit the suit: The NHL needed a national television contract and a foaming bulldog at the collective bargaining table with the NHLPA. It wanted a salary cap, and equitable revenue sharing. Essentially, it wanted to be the NBA in the U.S., so it hired from the right hand of David Stern.

"I think I'm pretty knowledgeable in the sports industry," Bettman said during his introduction as incoming (and first-ever) NHL commissioner. "I'm going to cram and learn and study as much as I can. I've got to learn the specifics of this business better."

Here's Bettman, with more hair and a lot less lockout mileage, from 1992:

(What happened to that charmer, right?)

Early into his term, Bettman had his first work stoppage.

He couldn't keep the owners in line back in 1994-95, with the momentum from the New York Rangers' Cup victory having intoxicated big markets into thinking they were risking a Golden Age for the NHL for the sake of a salary cap.

Turns out the Golden Age would be tarnished by the Dead Puck Era, during which Bettman bizarrely tried to sell hockey's offensive flourishes during a time when the NFL and Vince McMahon were making billions selling violence.

(And while Bettman doesn't deserve grief for rules that are or aren't changed, that's a pretty long stretch to have allowed the game to die on the vine like that.)

Allegedly losing $500 million per season under the League's financial system, Bettman and the owners orchestrated a second lockout in 2004-05 and kept their solidarity in place to finally earn their salary cap — sacrificing a season to do so.

Had you measured Bettman's performance from 1992 to 2005, he'd go down as C-minus, D-plus commissioner. The lockout strengthened the League's financial standing; but its standing as a viable sport in the U.S. was in question. From television to the gate, uncertainty clouded the NHL's future.

But his fortunes changed after Lockout II.

The new rules made the product undeniably more attractive. So did a slew of new stars, and a return to prominence for a few franchises in strategically important cities like Pittsburgh, Chicago and Boston. The Canadian dollar surged. The NHL's partnerships, from sponsors to a new television deal, thrived. Personnel decisions — from hiring John Collins to finally ending the disciplinary tenure of Compromised Colin Campbell — were on point.

Story continues