Norm OReilly - Business the NHL Way: Lessons from the Fastest Game on Ice

Praise for Business the NHL Way

By telling insightful stories inspired by the world of hockey, Norm OReilly and Rick Burton teach us valuable lessons about achieving successful outcomes in business, leadership, management, and sports. They show us how the NHL has thrived in the face of the health disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic that threaten business sustainability in every sector. Business the NHL Way is essential reading.

Scott Smith, President and Chief Operating Officer, Hockey Canada

In Business the NHL Way, Norm OReilly and Rick Burton use hockey as the vehicle to teach us about building successful businesses. The authors take us into rinks, locker rooms, and front offices to illustrate the shared strategy of hockey and business, which is, as the great Wayne Gretzky said, always knowing, always skating, to where the puck is going, not to where it has been.

Joan Ryan, Author of Intangibles: Unlocking the Science and Soul of Team Chemistry

Business the NHL Way is a lively and engrossing romp through hockey history told by a pair of insiders who are not afraid to shake off the gloves. But its also a sharp-eyed take on a question that bedevils every successful legacy business: How do we adapt and evolve without abandoning our essential character?

Sam Walker, Wall Street Journal Leadership Columnist, and Author of The Captain Class

Business the NHL Way is a fascinating read. Hardcore and casual hockey fans and those interested in the business of sport will enjoy the behind-the-curtains insights that Norm OReilly and Rick Burton provide. As someone who grew up playing and loving the game of hockey, I never expected I would be able to spend the bulk of my working career engaged in the business of hockey. Readers will learn about the inner workings of the NHL and better understand what drives decision-making at the club and league level. You will be impressed at the data and details provided. I know I was!

Cyril Leeder, Former CEO, President and Alternate Governor, Ottawa Senators

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Business the NHL way : lessons from the fastest game on ice / Norm OReilly and Rick Burton.

Names: OReilly, Norm, 1973 author. | Burton, Rick, author.

Description: Includes index.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220242526 | Canadiana (ebook) 20220242593 | ISBN 9781487508760 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781487538910 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781487538903 (PDF)

Subjects: LCSH: Success in business. | LCSH: National Hockey League.

Classification: LCC HF5386.O72 2022 | DDC 650.1 dc23

ISBN 978-1-4875-0876-0 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-4875-3891-0 (EPUB)
ISBN 978-1-4875-3890-3 (PDF)

Printed in Canada

We wish to acknowledge the land on which the University of Toronto Press operates. This land is the traditional territory of the Wendat, the Anishnaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, the Mtis, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario, for its publishing activities.

To the two hockey-loving villages where my family currently spends most of our lives. First, to La Minerve, Quebec, home to a few hundred, where my wife, Nadge, and I and our kids, Emma, Kian, Thomas, and Leland, have a cottage and spend precious weekends each winter playing hockey on the lake and under the lights of a spectacular outdoor rink in town. This is our family refuge. Second, to Cape Elizabeth, Maine, home to a few thousand, where the per capita rate of outdoor rinks is higher than anywhere I have ever lived.

Norm OReilly

To Barb, my beautiful, understanding wife. For Ethel and Hal Burton, proud Newfoundlanders, and their sons, my brothers, Peter and Gary, who taught me the game. To Jim Werner and in memory of Gump Worsley. And to all the Newfies who ever dreamed of playing in the NHL or on Canadian Olympic or Paralympic teams. Keep screeching them in.

Rick Burton

Great moments are born from great opportunities.

Herb Brooks

The day I stop giving is the day I stop receiving. The day I stop learning is the day I stop growing. You miss 100% of the shots you dont take.

Wayne Gretzky

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 NHLs 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. Cornells 1970 team, coached by the great Ned Harkness, had gone 2900 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 Cornells second national crown in four years (following the Ken Drydenled 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 Americas big leagues, features many dynamics that can be smoothly translated into the contemporary workplace.

I know that because Ive 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 Rhaume, and Dominik Haek 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.

As many NHL fans will tell anyone who will listen, the game is much more than an entertainment option. It is a difference-maker. It informs opinions, strategies, decisions, even in some cases marriages.