Twenty-five years to the day that Commissioner Gary Bettman visited Anaheim to witness the first-ever game played by the then-Mighty Ducks, he returned on Monday to help the team celebrate its first quarter-century.
Bettman was 41 years old on Oct. 8, 1993 and only a few months into his job as the NHL’s first commissioner (the highest title previously awarded was president) when the Mighty Ducks were launched as expansion cousins of the Florida Panthers. He recalled on Monday the questions that accompanied the addition of another team in Southern California, especially a team owned by the family-oriented Walt Disney Company.