League Still Investigating Incident at Village

Despite efforts by Rene Fasel, International Ice Hockey Federation president, to downplay the damage done at the Olympic athletes’ village by a group of U.S. men’s hockey players Thursday morning, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said Sunday he still considers the matter serious and is determined to discover the culprit or culprits.

Estimates of $1,000 and $3,000 have been made of the damage done to three rooms, 10 chairs and a fire extinguisher in the early-morning hours after the U.S. team was eliminated in the quarterfinals by the Czech Republic. Bettman said the USOC’s damage figure was $1,000.

“I’d like to know who did it,” he said. “I wish the appropriate offending party or parties wouldn’t wait for us to sift through this.

“Dennis Cunningham [the NHL’s director of security] has talked to a number of players and we’re trying to get a handle on the situation. . . . I don’t want to put any spin on it. Their conduct was inappropriate and unacceptable, whether it was $1,000, $5,000 or $50,000.”

The Olympics are conducted under the jurisdiction of the IIHF, not the NHL. However, Bettman said the NHL’s constitution empowers him to mete out punishment for conduct detrimental to the game.

“More importantly, it would be nice to know and to start with an apology,” he said. “I don’t mean that would be enough, but it certainly would be a starting point.”