Tom Renney 0:00

Hi, Bill. It's uh it's a great pleasure to have you on our little podcast. I've started this a few weeks ago and trying to reach out to people that um have had significant roles in in sport, especially, uh, but also beyond that as it all leaks into each other. But uh in your case, because of how busy you are and the schedule that you keep on a daily basis, which I have no idea how you do it, um, I can't thank you enough for jumping on with us and and look forward to chatting.

Bill Daly 0:24

Thank you, Tom. I'm honored to be asked, so I'm uh happy to help. Very, very good.

Tom Renney 0:29

I'm gonna talk about leadership. I'm gonna talk a little bit about how that performance from uh a league perspective resonates with you. And and on a personal level, Bill. I don't know how many people can say they really know Bill, other than you know, the numerous appearances and and hearing your voice uh you know uh frequently on on what's going on out there. But if you don't mind, I'll we'll play some catch. There's two guys talking, and um, you know, by all means, uh don't be afraid to ask questions back if you think maybe you would like to throw in my way, but this is more about you than it is about me. Bill, you play a significant leadership role with the National Hockey League, and I guess what I'm curious about is what specific learnings over the course of your career um in general as a lawyer, you know, and as having been with the National Hockey League for a very long time, but thinking from that leadership position, is there anything that really resonates you that gives the the leader kind of the the wherewithal, the confidence, the ability to assert himself or herself appropriately? Is there anything that you can kind of share with people that would be looking at this and wondering, this is a significant guy. How does he lead?

Bill Daly 1:32

Sure. I mean, look, I I think you accumulate things over time. You learn over time, and you never stop learning. And I feel like, you know, I come to work every day, I'm passionate about what I do. I think I exude that passion of people around me, and I think that's part of being a leader. I don't come here just to collect my paycheck at the end of it every two weeks. I I come here because I love what I do. I love the people that I do it with, and I love the end result, right? Which is creating a quality professional sports product that's grown and gotten better over time. I've had the the wonderful benefit of having great mentors over time. And I think that's important in any person's development, but certainly in leadership development as well. Going back to my time in youth athletics with some of the coaches I looked up to in high school and and going on to college athletics and college generally, and some of the skills that I took away from there, not only the importance of hard work and commitment to what you're doing, but being able to be disciplined with your schedule and prioritize correctly because sometimes there's just too much to do and not enough time to do it. So I think prioritization is is an important quality. And on to my professional career, right? I had uh wonderful senior lawyer mentors, worked at a big New York City law firm for actually, if I include uh years while I was going to law school, I was probably there for a good eight years, maybe, before I joined the National Accology and got fortunate here. And certainly since I became deputy commissioner in 2005, you know, I've worked directly for Gary Bettman, and he's been a wonderful mentor to me. I respect very much his kind of values, and I try to emulate them to the extent I can. And so I have a great leader that I've worked for for a long time now. So those have all helped kind of form who I am now and what I'm good at and what I'm I'm not necessarily good at.

Tom Renney 3:29

It's an important revelation, isn't it? If we know what we don't know, we're okay, as long as we're willing to do something about that. Um stop learning. No, absolutely. And unfortunately, there might be a little bit too much fool's gold out there that doesn't really take the time to recognize that and reach and look for help. And I think that you're where you are, Bill, because of of that and even just the the humble way that you approach continuing to learn, I think is really, really important. And people that get a chance to watch this, and I hope it's a broad section, cross-section, quite honestly, of people that are trying to identify themselves as leaders and look for what's good about that. You know, when you you said 05 with as deputy commissioner, but certainly there before that, there's been an awful lot um happened in, you know, in the league in terms of its genesis, in terms of you know how it's evolved. In your leadership style, is there anything uh you don't need to be really specific, but if you can kind of generalize on what types of things that really challenge leadership and even from the perspective where you know you and Gary obviously work in tandem, but you're kind of like the associate coach, if I could use that as a as kind of an example. But Gary's the head boss, he's the guy, and you have to be able to have a relationship with him where there's w an opportunity to challenge that thinking, um, you know, to help move the needle forward as the game progresses. Is there any one thing that you sit back and go, we did a really good job there? And there's probably numerous because I can think of a lot myself.

Bill Daly 4:51

You know, it's it's it's not really, and I I've heard Gary being asked the sim similar questions a lot, and so I value uh how he's answered it. It's not really how we focus on things. You know, throughout a career as long as ours, uh his is longer than mine currently, but I'm gonna be at the National Hockey League 30 years in January. So I would consider my uh tenure extended uh or long. What good leadership is about is how you deal with your failures as opposed to how you deal with your successes. And so that's one of the things I I think I'm most proud about. And it's not just speaking for me, it's speaking for Gary, it's speaking for the NHL because we have a very kind of loyal, passionate senior executive base who've been here a long time. It's I have a long tenure, but others have uh similarly long tenures uh over time. And that speaks to the organization. But I have sometimes learned more about myself and how to move the organization forward through some of the things we've tried and failed than some of the successes we've had. So they're both uh valuable, but that's kind of what I found is how you deal with those kind of bumps in the road that you have to get past to continue to grow.

Tom Renney 6:05

Aaron Powell Is there such a thing, Bill, as leadership character? We talk about character and athletes, and that's pretty, you know, pretty obvious and almost easy to identify with, but leadership character, and if I if I mention that to you, what does that conjure up in your mind in terms of leadership character? What makes up leadership character?

Bill Daly 6:24

Aaron Powell So my answer to the question would be yes, and at least in my view, and as I look at it, there is leadership character and the character of an individual, you know what we're all different. We all have different makeups, we all have different backgrounds, uh, we all have different things to help form your character. But at the end of the day, everyone has one. And I think if you look at leaders, certainly across the sports world, but probably across the business world and the world in general, you will find a lot of uh similar assets or aspects of character uh that are predominantly found in leaders. And so, you know, again, we all get there probably from a different place and in different ways. But I do think there is certainly something distinct about leaders and and leadership character.

Tom Renney 7:12

Sorry to interrupt you, Bill. I you just got me kind of thinking about something else, and that's the values that every leader kind of carries with with them. It's an interesting dynamic now, uh whether uh women are male. It seemed to me that personal personal value, a personal code of ethics is very much a part of of leadership. And I'm curious to know what do you hold close to you as absolutely must-have, non-negotiable set of values for Bill Daly.

Bill Daly 7:39

Yeah, no, I I appreciate that. In my answer to a question a couple of questions ago about mentors, um, you know, one of the things I really respect about Gary is is how honest he is and and how genuine he is. And he'll tell you how he feels, and I think that's important to be able to communicate effectively. Right. Uh, you know, for me, those are kind of the key core values that I have are kind of hard work because while I've been fortunate enough to go to school in a lot of nice places and and get decent grades and certainly progressed along career-wise, I wouldn't have gotten there without hard work. It doesn't really come easy to me, or at least I certainly don't feel like it comes easy to me. So I think hard work is kind of a core value that I have. Honesty in doing the right thing. Uh, whatever you think that right is uh right thing is, is very, very important to me. I'm not straying from what you think is right. If if you do what you think is right, even if you get blown up for it, you've done the right thing. So those would be two of my values that I hold certainly dear to me. I've tried to bring that to the table in everything I do every day, but certainly I've had difficult negotiations over the years where I had an adversary on the other side of the table, and what I wanted, we didn't always agree. And certainly with the Players Association, we had that long, drawn-out uh collective bargaining negotiation back in the early 2000s, which led to the National Hockey League missing a year of play. Not an easy thing to do, but we pursued what we pursued because for the right reasons, and ultimately we're able to achieve what we did. But what I took home from that negotiation in particular is every time I left the negotiating room, I felt good that I was respected on the other side of the table. Right. And never really lost that respect. That might be one of my greatest accomplishments.

Tom Renney 9:32

That's a good point, Bill. I I think as I listen to you speak, I, you know, for as much as I know you, that's certainly uh in the forefront of my mind when I think of Bill Daly. I think of honesty, um, you know, I think of a value-driven person. And I know I'd be saying the same thing about Gary and the league. You know, we're all well-intentioned, uh no question about that. When you talk about negotiations, are are you able in the heat of the moment, when it's getting dicey, are you able to maintain sort of that equilibrium that's required to continue to make sense, to continue to represent, you know, the entity that that you do, which is the National Hockey League? Do you continue to kind of respect and understand and appreciate and even trust your adversary to the point where they're doing their job? I get that, I'm doing mine, and ultimately you do get to kind of that middle ground. Is that a real tap dance or how do you frame that?

Bill Daly 10:26

Yeah, no, I I I think that's uh a fair observation. I I think that's part of being respected in a negotiation is so important. If you feel like you're not getting the truth or the full truth, you come away a lot more skeptical, much more cynical on being able to get to the right place at any point in time. One of the things I tried to do in kind of building that trust and building that respect is that's what earns you the respect and the trust on the other side of the table, right? And I think over time in the various negotiations I've had, not just players, you know, with officials, with uh outside providers, media rights companies and the like, you get to a quicker and better resolution if that trust bridge has been built. And so that's something that, you know, over time I think certainly I've I've learned to do. I try to stay level. I mean, that was one of those things that you acquire over time, a little more patience, a little different perspective of how certain things might be viewed by different people, different groups of people, different companies and the like. Trying to kind of understand the whole picture certainly has been helpful as I've gotten more advanced in years.

Tom Renney 11:33

What would you say about just the hockey culture in general? You know, obviously the National Hockey League. And even from a corporate perspective, Bill, the work life side of this um, you know, every day is a pretty big challenge nowadays. And nothing travels faster than a lie, you know, or the misunderstanding or the mistruth or whatever. I'm curious your feeling about the hockey culture in general. It's been, you know, as has others and sport, has certainly been challenged. What separates the hockey culture in general through its people and ultimately the product on the ice at any level? Even, you know, when you think back to your exposure to youth hockey and the and the and the role that you play in that now as a significant voice for the game across all levels naturally. How do you feel we're doing from a cultural perspective?

Bill Daly 12:19

That's a great question, and it's the it's the right question, and certainly it's been asked by a lot of people in recent years, going back maybe 10 now. I actually have always been a big fan of the hockey culture generally. Obviously, every culture will have problems that you can point to and be concerned about and hopefully address meaningfully. And I think generally we've done that and we've brought the game in a good place. But there are certain things about the hockey culture that I admire that I don't think we get sufficient credit for, whether, you know, it's the hard work, it's the humility, it's the way people approach the game. And it could be the in the way they're raised by their parents or their close supervisors and their coaching staff and the like, might be different than in some other sports and certainly professional sports in North America that make them tighter knit. Certainly, I talked about humility. It's not certainly been a tradition for hockey players to seek the spotlight, uh, even though they might deserve the spotlight. And I think the world is changing a little bit on that too, and the importance of sharing the personality of the culture with the general public, and that's part of being more popular and getting more attention and and building the business. But I don't think we'll ever lose the reputation and the reality of how kind of hardworking, committed, honest, and humble you know, the sport our our athletes are and the sport is. So I I think, you know, culture is always a work in progress, always things you can improve on. Hopefully you do. I mean, hopefully you identify and move on the things that need to be improved. But I think generally we've done a good job. We collectively, the hockey community, because yeah, as we know, a lot of this stuff happens at all levels of the hockey community. But I think we, the hockey community, is generally rise to that challenge. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Tom Renney 14:09

It's interesting, Bill. I I'm just thinking about the, you know, the PWHL and women's hockey in general, girls' hockey in general. And I think the fact that we have this hybrid existence now where women get the equal opportunity to pursue a professional sports league at the highest level, scholarships, opportunity for post-secondary education and still play. And it seems like the NHL and the guys' side of the game in general have have really tried hard to embrace that, you know, and recognize that and respect it and push it in the forefront. And the NHL as a league, whether you like it or not, is sort of the apex of the game uh in lots of ways. And I think the way that the league carries itself, the way that the the NHL and the PWHLL work together, you know, in on the in development, uh, you know, in general, that relationship is important. I think that's a very clear example of a culture that is now coexistent, um, you know, and sharing the responsibility of uh you know, every day trying to do the right thing because there's millions of children following. And and I guess to your a point you were making earlier, Bill, kids come to the rink or whatever they do with their discretionary time at the end of the day, whatever that might be, they've started off at home, they've gone to school, they've gone and had supper, potentially, we hope, maybe done their homework, and now they're into their discretionary time, and that person or that entity at the end of the day gets not only the person, but all that experience of their day, of their week, of their month, of their life. And, you know, that's a high order to have to identify with and become extraordinary in helping that youngster, that person, you know, turn out to be something special, whether it's an athlete or not, doesn't matter. Just, you know, their contribution to life is going to go through activity at some point in time. It's going to go through sport, we hope, no question, and we both and all love hockey. But boy, that and then you tack on social media on top of that, and how they're bombarded with this and that and every other thing, and they have to make decisions many times through a surrogate, many times from a broken home, many times for minimal schooling or the advantage that many schools and kids in it get, and a sport or an activity that is led by volunteers, God bless them. So that's why I'm really so interested in culture and the environment and strong, good people, you know, that can withstand what's in front of them, you know, in in our day and age, and certainly mine is I'm on the back nine, but I I'm really taken up by this now, and I and I'm curious to know if as a leader and leaders, you know, you and Gary feel similarly or or you know, have those discussions as well and with you both out in the field just chatting with people. Is that representative of what we're up against?

Bill Daly 16:57

Yeah, I think so. I mean, uh there was a lot uh bundled in there, and I'll try to unpack some different points you hit on because they were all great points. You know, first as an organization, I think we do recognize kind of our leadership world uh role in the sport of ice hockey, right? We we're the the best league in the world with the best players in the in the world in this sport. And I think how we utilize that position is very, very important and very influential on the future of the game. And we take that responsibility seriously. You mentioned the PWHL, the way we work with the PWHL, uh, the way we will work with the PWHL in the future and their role, they're finding their way and are going to be in a very similar, if not the same, position as the National Hockey League. We've tried to embrace them to help push them forward, women's hockey generally, but also to make the sport more welcoming to everybody and all backgrounds. I think we've also done a really good job, particularly, you know, in the last 20 years in building relationships with all levels of hockey and in different ways. We have a really good relationship with Hockey Canada and and USA Hockey, and and we meet with them regularly, but we also meet with all the member national federations, associations, and the International Ice Hockey Federation. We we're, you know, we're far closer, believe it or not, to uh the Canadian Hockey League and and the three constituent leagues there than we've ever been before. We're involved in supporting the United States Hockey League, USHL at so junior hockey in the United States, which I think is important to the continued growth of the game, for that to be strong. So, in terms of getting everybody in the same room and and trying to figure it out, we do that on a regular basis now. And I think it's really helped kind of move the sport forward. I'd be remiss if I didn't say we we also have that relationship with the college hockey conferences around the United States, Division I NCAA college hockey. And we all know about, you know, the the eligibility rule change that we saw recently, which is certainly going to elevate hopefully both the CHL but also college hockey generally, both in terms of visibility and relevance going forward. So all those organizations, it's really incumbent on us to kind of bring everybody together, talk through the issues. You know, obviously that we face different issues a lot of the times, but a lot of the issues we face are very similar. And to share best practices among those groups has become something that's vital. We have a former NHL player, Kevin Westgarth, who helps us in that area, helps me in that area. As me as principal liaison, he certainly does all the kind of the legwork behind the scenes to host annual conferences of uh hockey leadership around the world, bringing together all the different entities I just mentioned for two days of heavy meetings. And I think it's been really helpful. And I think it'll continue to be helpful and uh just some of the things PWHL obviously is there as well. Some of the things that that we have to continue to do to coordinate and move forward.

Tom Renney 20:06

I know you've got to get running here, Bill. Thank you. But I just two more quick points, if you don't mind. Are we in the experience industry?

Bill Daly 20:12

Yes, very much so. I mean, almost as much as or more than any other industry I'm I'm aware of. That's what we sell uh to a large extent, you know, on the business side, certainly, as opposed to, you know, the use side. Although, you know, you talked about it a lot about, you know, that hour at the rink being so instrumental in the life of children at all ages. Um so I think it's really an experienced industry at both levels. Uh certainly on the you know, on the NHL side, creating a fan experience that is something that people want to see and want to invest in is critical to us. And part of that is the experience the players are having, both at a major league level, but also at the youth level. Yeah, I agree. I could agree more.

Tom Renney 20:57

And I and I I still come back, as I'm sure it's no surprise to you. I come back to environment culture and and I do believe, and I'll I'll let you frame this however you want, but I I do believe too, Bill, that happiness, or you know, maybe to frame it a little differently for the you know, the ultra-competitive level, but enjoyment of where you are and who you're sharing the experience with uh is a competitive advantage. And anything less than that can become detrimental. It becomes, you know, we have people out there that are looking for precision and perfection every single day. And heaven knows, uh, when I look in the mirror, I know for sure that it does not happen. But I do know we can pursue excellence, Bill. And I and I'm I'm concerned again with the handheld device being that surrogate. I'm concerned with maybe the individual standing behind the bench or in the dressing room or at the front of the classroom, um, you know, at a department head. I'm I'm just a little fearful that we forget that we have to add to that culture, add to that experience, add to that environment, and make sure that we maximize human potential. And that's my biggest fear as we move forward. Maybe it's because I got grandkids now, I'm not sure, and he's already caught more fish than I'll ever catch in my life. But I'm just curious how you feel about happiness as a competitive advantage, enjoyment as a competitive advantage, and and how the leader is sort of maybe has to take on a little bit more of a new a new role. You know, maybe be more empathetic, but still draw the line, keep people accountable, still hold people responsible, all those things. That's a culture. And it's a it can be a successful culture. I'll let you close with that, Bill, and and in the interest of getting you back to work, um, we'll close it there. Sure.

Bill Daly 22:34

I couldn't agree more with what you're saying. And I think it harkens back to the fact that you know, maybe the first question you asked me out of the gate. I think to be effective, either as a leader or in any walk of life, you have to be passionate about what you're doing. You have to be happy to be where you are, and it doesn't matter what you do, uh, to have to move toward improvement. Right. Um, and to be the best person you can be. And I think that's critical. I think you see it at the National Hockey League level too, you being a former NHL head coach. Teams who who aren't happy to be at the rink and who don't want to practice and who don't want to play on a regular basis or who aren't having a good time with their teammates are certainly less effective than players who really enjoy what they're doing. And that's you know, it's certainly been my experience, and I think that's true generally in any organization.

Tom Renney 23:29

Yeah. Couldn't agree more. Bill, you're a good man, and I really, really appreciate you doing this. I'm it's sort of a fledgling little podcast that I hope is a little different in some ways because of what it is we talk to and and to whom. And um, if nothing else, even through its virtual existence, it's nice to be able to talk to you in person and and certainly let others see and hear from you. And um, I hope you know how important that is to all of us and wish you good luck with the league for sure. I'm hoping I can get Gary on down the road as well and and um and share thoughts with him and have his thoughts you know at the end of the day.

Bill Daly 24:03

But this has been a great by the way, I can make sure that happens. And and as I said, thank you so much for having me. I really think it's important work you're doing and and what the the whole theme here is. I think it's important for young people to hear, for everybody to hear, really. And so I think it it's a fantastic initiative. Happy to be a part of it. And Gary will do that for me if I ask him to do it. So anytime you need Gary, you let me know.

Tom Renney 24:29

Bill, thanks a million. Have a great day and enjoy the balance of uh the summer hockey season. Short summer. Thank you very much, Sam. Thanks for having me. Take care, Bill. See you later.