The commissioner of the National Hockey League, Gary Bettman, apparently isn’t too concerned that Tiger Woods said that “I don’t think anybody really watches hockey anymore,” nor is he worried that hockey critics say the sport is at second- or third-rate levels because of the 2004-05 lockout. (He also did not have a comment yesterday in Ottawa about the ongoing threats of punishment against the Rangers by the league, as covered by Kevin Greenstein in today’s paper.) Because of Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin, the success of the outdoor game on New Year’s Day, the strengthening of the Canadian dollar, and maybe the product itself, the NHL has garnered positive attention in the past few months and heads into the offseason in pretty good shape.

Woods himself has endorsed the game, saying that he “love[s] the sport,” but would rather see a game in person. He just doesn’t like watching it on television because “TV doesn’t do justice to [the sport].”

But television is important to the growth of any sport, and the 2008 Stanley Cup Finals matchup between Detroit and Pittsburgh brought eyeballs in front of the screens. Because of that, there is a perception that hockey is cool again — it’s similar to 1994, when the Rangers won the Stanley Cup, and people took notice because networks thought that the team’s quest to end a 54-year championship drought was a big deal.

But then the 1994-95 lockout came, and critics jumped all over the NHL because it lost a golden opportunity to make substantial marketing inroads. This was especially evident when Major League Baseball canceled its playoffs and World Series, and there was no hockey to fill the lack of weekday games in October 1994.

Despite Woods’s apparent joke, hockey audiences in America watched the 2008 playoffs in big numbers, at least in hockey’s television universe: The Versus network set viewership records, and NBC’s ratings were the highest for hockey in five years.

So has the pendulum swung, and is hockey going beyond its audience in NHL markets?

“I am not so sure that the pendulum has swung as far in either direction as people suggest,” Bettman said in a recent interview. “We had a strong, solid season and it was great for our fans because it was so competitive. I think [the league] is perhaps as healthy as it has even been. All of our clubs can afford to be competitive, attendance is increasing, our TV ratings are strong, and the vital signs are good.”

All in all, things seem pretty good — but the 2007-08 season is now gone, and Bettman faces a number of offseason issues. Two owners — Ottawa’s Eugene Melnyk and Anaheim’s Henry Samueli — have legal problems. Melnyk faces fraud charges after Canadian and American regulators accused him and three other executives of the Biovail Corporation, claiming they misled investors about the pharmaceutical company’s financial results. In May, Biovail settled with the Department of Justice in regard to criminal allegations related to activities surrounding the 2003 commercial launch of the drug Cardizem LA. The agreement shielded Melnyk from criminal liability.

In May, Samueli, the chairman of the board and chief technical officer for Broadcom, took a leave of absence from the company because of a civil complaint filed against it by the Securities and Exchange Commission concerning the company’s stock option granting practices.

“As far as we know right now, as it relates to both Melnyk and Samueli, we are dealing with civil actions,” Bettman said.

Bettman may be getting off a bit easier than his collegues in other leagues, who are dealing with issues such as steroids, jailed players, and possibly corrupt referees. “The fact is everybody is going to have issues at some point or another,” Bettman said. “What you get judged on is not by the issues you have, but how you deal with them.”

The business of the NHL is the product itself, and the NHL will again make a foray into Europe, integrating itself into European hockey circles as the Rangers compete in the Victoria Cup in September. The league will also stage regular season games in Stockholm and Prague.

There also might be a challenge to the NHL from Russia: The Russian Super League is now the Continental Hockey League. The old 20-team league has added four franchises, and has expanded beyond Russia into Belarus and Latvia. The league is financially stable, and is the brainchild of Alexander Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the board of the huge Russian Gazprom oil company. Prime Minister Putin also supports the league.

The NHL and the Russian Hockey Federation have not had a smooth relationship in the past few years, and Russia would like to keep some of its young stars home. Ovechkin, who is from Moscow, is one of the NHL’s most marketable players, and since he signed a 13-year deal to play in Washington, he is not eligible to play in Russia until he is 35 — in 2021. Two NHL players, Chris Simon and John Grahame, have joined the Russian league. But neither defection from the NHL will cause any waves, and Bettman seems to have a wait-and-see attitude toward the new league.

“I know what it is,” Bettman said of the potential rival. “I still believe the best players in the world are going to come to the NHL, where the best hockey in the world is played.”

During the Victoria Cup in Bern, Switzerland, the Rangers will take on the winner of the 2008 European Champions Cup, Metallurg Magnitogorsk (one of the Russian teams in the new Continental League, ironically enough). It will be the first game of an annual series that will pit the winner of the European Champions Cup against an NHL team. After that, the Rangers will play two NHL regular-season games against Tampa Bay in Prague on October 4 and October 5. In Sweden, the Pittsburgh Penguins take on the Ottawa Senators, also on October 4 and October 5. The Pens will also play against the Finnish club Jokerit in Helsinki in a preseason game on October 2. Clearly, the NHL is looking toward the European market for more than just players: There are a lot of euros, kroner, and korunas to be made, and the NHL would like to get some.

It’s imperative that the league establish a stronghold in Europe, because the Medvedevs and Putin want to establish a true European league with the intent of keeping players home instead of seeing them go to North America. Europe may emerge as a major battleground for hockey supremacy.

evanjweiner@yahoo.com