National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman was in Calgary today and at the top of his agenda was discussion of the CalgaryNEXT arena/stadium proposal. The lunch hour saw Bettman attend a function hosted by the Calgary Chamber of Commerce where he extolled the virtues of the project and encouraged the city’s business leaders to contact their political representatives to get the project moving ahead.

Bettman’s stumping for the project didn’t fall on deaf ears, as Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi had a pretty memorable response. After the jump is a brief rundown of what was said on both sides.

All second-half accounts via Twitter, as Bettman’s appearance at the Chamber wasn’t recorded. He covered much of the same ground on the air with Rob Kerr of Sportsnet 960 The Fan (and you can listen to their chat here.)

Nope. The city’s still examining the proposal using the framework that they laid out in the fall. The next actual new developments in this ongoing saga will probably be in late April, when the report from the first phase of the framework should be hitting City Hall. And coincidentally, that’s also about the time we should learn more about the remediation costs.

So what was actually accomplished by all the hubbub today? Not much. To quote the Bard: