Foreword by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman

1. It Starts at the Top , 2. Why the World’s Business Leaders Use Sport to Drive Themselves , 3. Why Ice Hockey Matters during Global Challenges , 4. “Smart” Copycats Can Run with the Big Dogs, 5. “Brand” New Offerings with Creativity, 6. Innovation: How the NHL Has Thrived in This Space, 7. Veterans Matter: The Case Study of Zdeno Chára, 8. Market the NHL Way: Relevant to the Day, 9. Women’s Professional Ice Hockey and the True Value of Inclusion, 10. Conflict Management: What Can We Learn from the NHL?, 11. Modern Cautionary Tales for Business: Cherry, Rhéaume, Peters, and Chicago’s Blackhawks, 12. Two Birds, One Stone

Afterword, Hayley Wickenheiser

When Norm and Rick first asked me to write the foreword for a business playbook – one that coined the concept “from the ice to the office” – I had to smile. After all, when this book is published in 2022, I will have been commissioner of the National Hockey League for 30 years and the longest-serving active commissioner of any pro sports league. Having spent nearly three decades in the NHL’s offices, I suppose I may be suited to reflect on just how the game has traveled since 1992.

As a college student at Cornell University, I knew hockey was huge. Big Red huge. Cornell’s 1970 team, coached by the great Ned Harkness, had gone 29–0–0 en route to winning the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championship. No college team has ever run the table like that in Division I hockey. It was Cornell’s second national crown in four years (following the Ken Dryden–led championship of 1967).

Harkness was so good he made the jump from college to the Detroit Red Wings. That was a feat no college coach had ever accomplished. What was wilder was knowing his replacement, Dick Bertrand, had not even graduated from Cornell yet.

During my years on that beautiful Ithaca campus in upstate New York, we went to the Frozen Four in 1972 and 1973, missing winning the NCAA championship in 1972 to a great Boston University team. So, it should come as no surprise that hockey was a dominant topic of discussion at Cornell. Later, following law school at NYU, I would end up beginning my sports career at the National Basketball Association (NBA). But when the opportunity came to make the switch to the NHL, I was ecstatic. Our game, the fastest sport of America’s big leagues, features many dynamics that can be smoothly translated into the contemporary workplace.

I know that because I’ve had the good fortune to watch some of the greatest athletes in any sport ever and to subsequently play a role in preserving legacies built by players like Maurice Richard, Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Bobby Orr, Mario Lemieux, Brendan Shanahan, Grant Fuhr, Martin Brodeur, Patrick Roy, Wayne Gretzky, Manon Rhéaume, and Dominik Hašek to name but a few. These legends all featured resilience, elite performance, the ability to crash glass ceilings, commitment, and a rare team-centric focus in times of increasing individualism.