Rating:

General Audiences

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Fandom:

No Fandom

Additional Tags:

Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, NHL | National Hockey League, Hockey, Meta

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-09-02 Completed: 2026-09-26 Words: 10,754 Chapters: 2/2

What They Don’t Teach You In The NHL CBA

Summary

A non-comprehensive guide to the behind-the-scenes and logistics of the NHL, for those who want to be more accurate or to get inspired by previously unknown possibilities.

Or for those who want the room-temperature tea of what it's like to work in the NHL.

Notes

Inspired by other hockey guides like this one, this is for all the people who want to write accurate hockey but aren't quite sure how things really work.

This isn't meant to explain the rulebook or hockey history or list out public-facing aspects of team - there are plenty of other amazing resources for that - but instead dive into the inner workings.

This is all based on my personal experience or the experience of people I knew around the NHL (and AHL), so what may be accurate for one team could be completely wrong for another team.

Chapter 1

With the popularity of hockey in the fandom space, there are a ton of guides out there already detailing rules and the CBA and hockey history.

However, a lot of fanworks try to tackle the inner workings of a league; following the people who are employed by the league, a team, or a media company. And that’s where I thought I could help: I worked in/adjacent to the NHL 2008-2021, so I was kind of there (at least, for one of the most popular fandoms currently). This is with the caveat that this is one person's experience, so it could vary from team-to-team.

Please comment with any questions that you have, and I will update with answers if I have any!

---

I. THE DAY-TO-DAY

Teams have practices or games pretty much every day during the season, outside of league-mandated days off every two weeks. Players are expected to show up to the facilities for off-ice meetings and either work out off the ice or participate on the ice.

“Optional” practices or morning skates just means the on-ice portion is optional - there’s still a lot of breaking down film or conditioning that they’re doing. Sometimes players do skip practice, but that’s with prior notice and approval.

You may hear “the room” being referenced in interviews and articles. “The room” is short for dressing room, which is what they call it instead of locker room because it’s a Canadian thing.

(Canada is also the reason why a giant lakehouse mansion is considered a cottage).

As much as I’d like to blame Canada for this, I cannot. Jerseys are often called sweaters instead, because players used to legit wear sweaters. And hockey is nothing if not historically navel-gazing at all times.

There are two dressing rooms: the public one where media sometimes comes in and where the boys change into their gear, and the private one which is where their street clothes are.

You’d think that the players would all be clothed in the public dressing room, as that’s where they put gear on over their base layers vs. totally changing and is also where the media (and cameras) are allowed. You’d be wrong. Eyes up always.

There’s media availability at practice, morning skate, and after games. The head coach always speaks and then the media requests 3-4 players at each event. The captain usually speaks, but not always.

That’s a bit of a lie; sometimes, when the head coach has somewhere to be right after a game or practice, an assistant coach will take his place. But that’s a maybe once per season thing.

The times where players speak to the media are referred to as “media availability”, “avails”, or “media scrums.” Press conferences only refer to major announcements (retirements, trades, free agent signings).

Captains do not lead practice. I cannot stress that enough. Guys will be picked to lead stretches at skate but that is not based on seniority/leadership.

Coaches lead practice and they would be very annoyed with all the fics saying that captains made the team bag skate because no they did not.

Captains, for the most part, are responsible for being the main media representative and also can talk to the officials on the ice. They unofficially set the tone in the room, but other players can do that too - it’s not all on the captain.

In terms of leadership setup, most of the time there’s a captain and two alternate captains (one C and two As). Sometimes teams will rotate through the As based on home/road (one C and four As) and sometimes teams don’t have a captain at all (three As!) AND rotate (six As!!!). However, there can only be three players with letters in the lineup. If one of the players is out that game, another player can be given a letter in their place. While the C is a Big Deal, the players who wear As are usually either good in the room or young guys who are seen as The Future.

The only player not allowed to wear a letter is the goalie. Justice for goalies.

Sometimes practice ends in a shootout with the team split in two competing and when the goalies are standing on their heads and nobody scores it gets ultra competitive.

There is a logo on the floor of the dressing room. You do not, under any circumstances, step on the logo. Sometimes teams will literally rope off the logo. It’s a whole thing. (Teams have started putting the logo on the ceiling instead).

After practice/games, the boys all throw their sweaters into a bin in the middle of the dressing room, and the equipment staff take care of laundering them. The players don’t get to keep their jerseys; they’re usually auctioned off or given out to season ticket holders, unless the player buys it.

The equipment staff are like the little brothers you love but bully relentlessly on the team. They’re at every game and every practice at home and on the road, from training camp to the end of playoffs. And the boys do tip them generously during the season.

I know of some guys who go to their previous team’s equipment manager to sharpen their skates whenever they can. The equipment staff are the unsung heroes of it all as far as I’m concerned.

 

II. GAMES

On gameday there’s usually two phases: morning skate and game. Skate usually starts at 10-10:30am for the home team (though the guys arrive earlier) and 11:30-11:45 for the road team (though don’t quote me on this as it’s been 5 years since I’ve had my hands on a schedule). Some teams will have skate at their practice facility, some will have it at the arena.

Most teams have separate dedicated practice rinks from the arena’s ice. The Vancouver Canucks are the only team that doesn’t.

Depending on the team/arena, media availability is either in the dressing room or in a designated media room. In the dressing room, reporters literally crowd around players with microphones/phones held out to record their responses. It is very claustrophobic. I’ve seen a girl literally crawl on the floor to get to the front of a scrum because she was 5-foot-nothing and the national TV guys wouldn’t let her in.

Sometimes the Canadian TV guys tape a mic to a hockey stick. It is very charming.

During games, both the TV and radio broadcasts for the teams will each request one player for each intermission. These interviews last about a minute, happen right after the period ends, and the guys are usually completely out of breath and sweaty.

During intermissions (which were 17, now are 18 minutes long) some guys will literally strip off all their gear and hop in the ice bath. Those guys are weird. 

In terms of intermission entertainment, the first one will generally have an on-ice game (mites, tricycle races, musical chairs, etc) while the second will have an off-ice game since the ice will be in rougher shape.

Speaking of the ice, nobody except for the ice crew is allowed to be on it for at least 3 hours prior to puck drop. That rule does not exist in the AHL.

After games at home the players are provided with a dinner they can take home if they want.

The team will order pizza for postgame food as well, and after a 2OT road playoff game it is the best 1AM pizza you scarf down on the way to the bus you will ever have.

The boys choose the music in warm ups. Sometimes they keep it the same for the entire season and so you develop visceral associations with certain songs, sometimes they like to change it up regularly.

In the 2010s timeframe, it would have been nonstop EDM and The Weeknd and Drake. I cannot emphasize that enough. If you don’t have at least two Chainsmokers songs on the warmup playlist you have too few. Ellie Goulding is a must.

The boys ALWAYS want it louder. They love that in Vegas the warm up music is so loud it’ll shake water bottles off the dashers.

The season ticket holders HATE how loud the music is and send in complaints. It’s a delicate balance for the business operations side of the team.

Some teams let the players choose their own goal songs and some of them try to keep it secret and some of them make jokes and it is hilarious. But it also incredibly stressful for game ops staff to figure out who got the goal given deflections and whatnot.

There is a LOT of debate on the business operations side of what the goal song should be. Before it was real easy to just go with Rock N Roll Pt 2 but that song has been banned from sports.

To be honest, a lot of in-arena DJs will try to avoid playing any music from controversial/criminal artists. It’s why you won’t hear Chris Brown or Kanye West at a game.

The NHL employs people in each teams’ city specifically to capture content for use on social for either the league or the road team, knowing that during the regular season teams generally don’t send their full content groups on the road. They were called LSCs, or Live Social Contributors, when I was active.

Each arena has a regular bomb-sniffing dog rotation. Employees at those arenas do get to know those dogs and their handlers.

There is a team suite at home games that hosts scratches, injured players, alumni, etc. so they don’t have to stay in the press box or in the room.

If they are in the press box, they can partake in the press box snacks. Some arenas have GREAT snacks. Some arenas are the epitome of “you tried.”

Players get tickets to every home game and the option to buy tickets at every road game. If they play in their hometown and expect a big crowd it is often referred to them “playing for free” that night because they bought so many tickets.

Mic'd up segments are very popular and so are done on a pretty regular basis. There are generally two categories: broadcast and team. The broadcast will mic up a guy and play the clips during the game. Those clips are very sterile and may need media relations clearance but for the most part are done with the idea that they can't show anything controversial. Teams will save the footage and audio to compile and post later; that video is reviewed both by PR and the player/his agent before going public. That's why the team-produced mic'd up videos are much more interesting than anything shown on the broadcast - they can check with the guy to see if something is okay. 

Teams and refs are notified ahead of time if anyone is mic'd up, and if anybody is caught on the mic they are also asked for approval (team-produced only).

Mics are sewn into a pouch that are attached to shoulder pads by the equipment staff. No part of the mic should be visible or be able to fall off during the game; though having the mic break mid-game is a possibility. 

 

III. TRAVEL

When flying, you don’t go through a normal terminal, you park and board through general aviation, which is more like a doctor’s waiting room than an airport terminal.

There’s also only a handful of trips in the NHL where you aren’t taking the team plane. The NYC metro teams and LA/Anaheim is basically it for bussing between games. You might take the train on a very rare occasion.

For games in Europe, it’s still a private charter, but a much larger one to carry the extra players and staff that tag along.

TSA isn’t a thing, they wand you on the tarmac and that’s about it. And that’s not an every time thing either.

From the time the players park at the airport to when the plane is ready for takeoff is like 15-30 minutes.

Planes are referred to as the “team plane” or “team charter,” which is distinct from a private jet. An owner may spring to have a PJ fly guys to the all-star game or the NHL Awards (when there was an awards show) but it’s not a regular thing.

There’s assigned seating on the planes, though the guys often get up and move around regardless. Management and support staff are up front (GM and head coach at the very front) while the veterans are at the back. There are usually a bunch of guys who play cards in the back.

The team plane is all business class seats with tons of leg room and the flight attendants (who regularly fly with the team) give out SO MUCH food all the time. Honestly, it ruins you for commercial flights.

I want to emphasize that, essentially, you have the same flight attendants for every road trip for years. They hang out with the staff, know preferences, go to the games, etc.

The broadcasters and producer travel with the team on the team plane, bus, etc. They do try to keep a professional media relationship with the team, but to be honest are closer with the players and staff than anybody on the social team would be.

When on the road, there’s an early bus and a late bus to/from the hotel and rink, unless you’re flying out after the game and then there’s only one bus time.

The equipment staff handles all the hockey bags and team equipment, but the players/staff handle personal luggage. There’s usually a big box truck on the tarmac waiting for the team plane to unload all the gear, along with two busses to carry the players and the rest of the staff.

For practice, morning skate, and games on the road there’s an early bus and late bus to take to the rink if you don’t walk/Uber. No assigned seating but it’s the same as the plane: management/staff up front, players in the back.

Depending on travel schedule, you could take the bus straight from the arena to the airport after the game and damn does that bus leave RIGHT after the game. Like, no lolly-gagging around if you’re on the road and the team is scheduled to fly out right after the game.

In the CBA (the collective bargaining agreement, aka the union rules) it mandates that teams must stay in 4- and 5-star hotels. Like, Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons and JW Marriott on the regular. Courtyard Marriott and Holiday Inn? We don’t know her. Doubletree is on thin ice.

Also in the CBA only rookies or players on their ELCs (entry level contracts, first three years) have roommates on the road. It used to be by player preference, and players who were entitled to their own rooms could choose to have a roommate on the road, but that got shut down after the 2012-13 lockout.

A team will book out like 50 rooms in a hotel. For all the players and staff, but also a conference room for breakfast/team meals and a room for the trainers and massage therapists to treat the players.

There’s a shared list of favored hotels and if the team services person (aka the person who books travel) has a bad experience at the hotel they can and will refuse to take the team back. Anyways that person tends to get the second-biggest suite after the GM.

Locals know the hotels that teams stay at and will wait outside for autographs, known as seekers. The boys LOVE messing with seekers. I know two guys who had seekers jump into a fountain in the winter in exchange for autographs.

Should clarify: seekers are adult men who only get autographs to sell them and usually have binders full of stuff. If it’s a kid they love that shit.

Some of the more famous players will have their rooms booked under fake names (e.g. Sidney Crosby is never Crosby at a hotel).

When a team arrives at a hotel there’s a little table set up with the list of names, room numbers, and key cards that everyone picks up from. Everyone on the team also gets a list of which rooms everyone is in.

It is totally normal for players on opposite teams who are friends to go out to dinner together before or after a game. Like, it’s even expected to a degree.

 

IV. OFF-ICE

Ping pong is everything. Fantasy football is also huge in the room.

Oh they also refer to what goes on with the team as “the room.” So like “how’s the room feeling?” And “has there been any division in the room?” are completely legit questions.

Autographs are also a thing. The boys will chirp a guy if they deem him to have a bad signature, to the point that I have seen signatures change year-to-year in response.

Autographs are so messy because they are required to sign literally hundreds of items for the team for various auctions, giveaways, and charity efforts. So they usually include their number for easier identification.

In sports, there’s a difference between public relations and media relations.

Public relations is the term for business operations PR - sponsors, the foundation, community events, etc.

Media relations is the group that handles what people mostly think as PR - player movement press releases, statements to the media, grabbing players for scrums, etc. Media relations travels with the team, public relations stays at the team offices.

In the early days of the Winter Classic, the NHL partnered with HBO to produce a series called "24/7: The Road to the Winter Classic" which was an amazing behind-the-scenes docuseries around the two teams playing in the Winter Classic. It produced lots of jokes/memes, but also caused multiple NHL teams to try to recreate that same magic with in-house production teams. The Bruins had Behind the B, the Oilers had Oil Change, the Sharks had The Deep, and I'm sure there are more. The same magic was not recreated, but it did mean that players had to deal with cameras capturing behind-the-scenes more often.

There’s 1-2 days before the season starts during training camp where the marketing team takes photos and videos of every single player on the roster, including minor league guys who were invited to camp. These are for video boards, social graphics, ads, etc. They sometimes also include the short intermission videos or social media videos that you see that are like the “What’s in the Box” trend or the “guess which teammate this random kid drew” series.

If a player gets traded to the team mid-season, they will go through a mini version of that to get the headshot and basic marketing photos.

Players on the team are also obligated to help with marketing outside of that, though some of the players have handshake deals with staff to not participate.

Team photo day - the day when the entire team takes a group photo - is after the trade deadline. They take one photo with just the team and hockey ops staff, and then one photo with the entire front office as well. After that it’s practice, though there is some goofing off during the post-photo pre-practice time frame.

NHL teams all work with Getty Images, and have a Getty-affiliated photographer at all games. That means they all have Getty accounts, plus archives of thousands of additional photos each season. Seriously, I think we usually had 300+ photos per game?

Players want photos. Since social DMs tend to compress the photos, and like pro athletes were going to check their email, there were a few specific apps specifically developed to send players photos. Greenfly, Opendorse, and Photoshelter were the ones I had heard of if you want to be hyper-specific.

That did not stop the boys from searching Getty Images and grabbing the watermarked versions anyways.

Or screenshotting the official account’s social posts. And then using said screenshot on Tinder.

A lot of the players cheat. A lot. Even the broadcasters. Realities of being on the road for half the year, but yeah.

Media relations will decline to have a player available to the media if they feel he’s done too much or if they’re trying to get on his good side (like if a player is notoriously a prima donna).

Some guys take it very personally if they’re not featured in marketing/social posts even if they don’t do anything deserving of being in marketing/social posts (or even refuse to take part in the creation of the marketing/social posts). The front office has to humor them anyways.

Players will regularly do community events with the community relations and foundation teams (they are separate, but similar). Those include going to school assemblies, hospital visits, fundraisers, etc.

There’s usually one main fundraising event the whole team goes to per year. Could be a gala, golf tournament, wine tasting, etc. just depends on the team.

Foundation stuff is mostly organized through the WAGs - there’s a group chat with the wives/girlfriends and the foundation team - while the community relations stuff is handled directly with the players. The foundation will have a meeting with the WAGs prior to the season to introduce themselves and build trust for all the asks that they’re going to have.

Speaking of WAGs, all arenas have a family room where players’ family/friends can go hang out away from the crowds. Usually lots of toys in there because there are SO MANY babies on every team.

The mascot will stop by the family room because all the players’ kids LOVE the mascot more than anything in the world. Seriously there are players’ kids who will FaceTime mascots of previous teams. The players are happy that the kids are happy but otherwise are ambivalent about the mascot.

All NHL mascots have a group chat. There was also a separate group chat that excluded Gritty.

WAGs will organize trips to away games, especially during the playoffs. Sometimes they have to be snuck in and out of the arena by security because away fans would threaten/spit on them.

WAGs also make “WAG jackets” for the playoffs with their guy’s name and number on them and they are obnoxious but amazing. In the 2010s it was all denim jackets but has evolved into other iterations.

There is usually a head WAG on a team - can be the wife of the captain or the wife of a long-tenured/veteran player. She does most of the organizing, welcomes a player to a team, helps the wife and family, and so on.

There is also a person whose job it is to help players in their day-to-day lives. Find housing, get set up in the area, schools for kids, moving logistics, etc. They also are the ones who help any visiting players who get injured/are hospitalized while in the city. So if a player from Buffalo got injured enough to need surgery in Anaheim, that Anaheim staff member will be the one to check in on them, get them access to watch games, help organize travel for family members, and be their “assistant” until they can leave.

Player contracts are fully guaranteed. If they move teams, they don’t get paid less money (do not bring up state income tax to me). The only time that changes is if the player gets bought out, where they still get the money and are on the team’s cap but they don’t play for the team. Or if there’s a one-time exemption because a new CBA was signed that reduced the salary cap ceiling but now I’m getting way too inside baseball for fics.

For trades, the GMs will try to keep it under wraps until the player(s) are informed, but it’s not always possible. More than once a player has learned of it from Twitter or being locked out of a team facility coughVegascough. Media relations and the web/social team sometimes know before the players do in order to prepare the press release and social post.

Trades or player movement will happen at any time. Every social media person in the league has a story about the weirdest place they’ve had to post major news. Side of the road, in a grocery store during COVID, in the middle of a hike, at 3AM on a Sunday… They all try to out-do each other.

All player nicknames end in -y, -sy, or -er. If your last name is Campbell your nickname is Soupy. If a player has a different/weird nickname that was given to him by his teammates, 99% of the time it is a sex reference. “Oh but the team explained that it came from this other thing!” The team lied, it is about his penis or his favorite sex position.

The boys love FaceTiming each other.

Some players simply don’t have social media and have no interest in starting one, not even a burner. There was a player who once started one, got freaked out after a bot followed him, and called team staff at midnight to help him delete it.

Rookies, if they’re especially young (e.g. teenagers), will often live with veteran teammates or retired players during the season. If they’re in their early 20s, there’s often an apartment complex that the team directs them to that houses all the younger guys.

All players have an equipment sponsor; the big ones are Bauer, Warrior, and CCM. Their gloves, pants, helmets, skates, and stick are dictated by their sponsor. Though sometimes they will switch up equipment to one of their non-sponsors and slap a different logo on it.

The boys get SO MUCH team-issued gear, so many things with the team logo on it, but will ruthlessly chirp a player that wears a team logo outside of official team duties like it is a rule even for support staff to the point that I still don’t wear my team stuff in public years after I left.

“Oh, so you play for [team]? Wow, I can’t believe you play for [team]! Look at this big shot over here!” Just relentless chirping about it.

The boys lose an alarming amount of teeth and most of them don’t get permanent fixes until either the offseason or until after they retire to let the repair work heal. Flippers are a temporary fix.

Leaving flippers (fake teeth) in a hotel room happens a lot.

There are two, sometimes three (schedule permitting) team-wide get togethers during the season: the Halloween party, the Christmas party, and sometimes a Super Bowl party. Everyone dresses in costume for Halloween - which can be weeks ahead of time - while Christmas usually has a fair amount of ugly sweaters. Halloween is usually adults-only, while Christmas includes the kids.

There is a CBA-mandated league-wide Christmas break where the team is not allowed to practice. It’s only a couple of days so if there’s any travel, it’s usually fairly local. Players are not allowed to be traded during this time.

There is no such break for New Year’s. I swear literally every year we were on the team plane on New Year’s Eve, except always flying cross-country so we’d celebrate the new year multiple times.

GMs and agents will strategically leak info to the press. I have seen a GM hold a formal media availability to discuss a signing and refusing to disclose the salary, and then as soon as it is “over” he’ll tell the press the exact contract details. The media relations team will also give scoops to certain reporters to stay on their good side or convince their outlet to increase coverage.

July 1 is Canada Day, and also the first day of free agency so lots of players switching teams that day. After July 1’s free agent frenzy ends all the reporters go to their cottages for the summer and they get really annoyed if there’s any news during cottage season.

To be honest the front office is also annoyed if there’s any news in late July/August, because that’s the only time they’re allowed to take vacation.

Bobbleheads have about a 6 month lead time for production, in case you were curious.

On the other hand, t-shirts and towels can be printed in around 24-48 hours. That’s why they’re so prevalent during the playoffs.

 

V. ALL STAR GAME

Most of the guys hate it, to be honest, so much so that the NHL instituted a suspension for anyone who skipped it without a good reason (aka injury). Didn’t stop guys from skipping it anyways!

There are some guys who are notorious for skipping the ASG. Those guys’ names may rhyme with Midney Brosby and Walex Snowvechkin.

The entire weekend is like a convention. The league books music acts of various quality for invite-only concerts as well as the on-ice performances. And you will see the wildest people at the invite-only concerts. Like, the coaches will just start partying. 

The dressing rooms are chaotic, especially on the skills competition day. It’s the most relaxed of the two on-ice days, so a lot of the players will bring their kids to the room, which is as adorable/chaotic as you’d think. Like, imagine a trio of 6-year-olds whose dads all play for the Central Division pestering Vezina-winning goalies to try on their pads and helmets or playing hide-and-seek in the stalls.

The first day of the weekend is the fan convention, which is mostly random booths set up and a mascot street hockey game. The players also hold media availability there, and then leave to go catch up with former teammates/go party.

The last day is the actual game/tournament, and none of the guys want to be there. The boys loved when it was the tournament because if they lost in the first round they could get out of there early.

There used to be an All-Star Game draft where the two captains would take turns picking guys to be on their team. The last player picked won a car. The players complained about this and got rid of having a last player and then the draft because their feelings got hurt.

 

VI. DRAFT

My info is out of date because I quit hockey prior to the draft being decentralized, but if you’re looking for pre-2024 draft info here you go.

The modern draft is held at an arena (outside of the 2005 and 2020 drafts but uhhh extenuating circumstances) with all the teams at tables on the arena floor, and behind them is a riser of press and team staff.

The first day is only the first round, and those kids go through a ton of different stations after being drafted. They take a headshot, some stupid marketing photos for Getty, sign a bunch of stuff, and briefly put a series of jerseys on over their heads for trading cards and whatnot. The whole time the team media relations person (or social person, if there’s multiple guys drafted in short order) is leading them around. Then they have media availability with local and national media.

The players then get taken to the team’s suite at the arena, where they can chat with the team’s hockey ops personnel that aren’t involved in amateur scouting. Usually some of their family joins them.

Day two is a similar but more pared down/more rapid version of the first day. By the third or fourth round not all the guys who are drafted are present at the draft. By the sixth and seventh rounds there shouldn’t be any guys present (because it means they were on the fence about being drafted) but sometimes there are some and lemme tell you the photographers/media that are still there are NOT happy about it.

Honestly, the draft was mostly a place for the front offices to all get together in one spot and party. Nothing like closing down a Chicago bar with multiple retired NHLers-turned-GMs/scouts at the 2017 draft.

 

VII. PLAYOFFS

Playoffs are like if you decide to sprint a marathon. For one team, it can last from anywhere from four games to 28 games; one week to two months.

The playoffs are like a fever dream. I worked for teams that went deep, and it’s seriously like two straight months of working 6AM-1AM and everything you do is under a microscope.

All non-hockey operations staff get kicked off the team plane at this point. Broadcasters and content teams? Sorry, you get to book your own flights. Which means that sometimes they’re booking flights during/immediately after a game for the next day.

When you get deep enough into the playoffs, there’s only a handful of flights per day that can connect you between the two playoff cities, and so those flights are suddenly packed with NHL media and team staff sitting in middle seats as far as the eye can see.

Fortunately, the team services department will still book them a hotel. It’s no longer the same hotel as the players, but that’s one less thing to worry about.

Some owners splurge and fly out the business operations staff to road playoff games, particularly in the Stanley Cup Final. Some do not. All teams generally fly out the wives to at least one game, though, especially if its a potential clincher.

The in-arena entertainment gets a major upgrade for the playoffs, since the tickets are for a premium and they want to entice the crowd to be as loud as possible. This is where on-ice projects, light-up wristbands, full arena giveaways, and special shows first started appearing before they crept their way into the regular season.

The front office staff are the ones who tape all 18,000+ wristbands to the seats each game.

It’s a rule to not bother the players with anything unrelated to the playoffs during that time. You don’t want to be blamed for distracting a player.

However, players also recognize everything the staff does to make it an ideal experience for them. Sometimes they’ll donate food or treats for the front office in appreciation - I’ve heard that one player used to regularly host pizza parties when he was playing.

This is the time of year when players disregard all medical advice. Can they still move out on the ice? Then they’re playing. Broken ribs, punctured lung, torn ACL and MCL, broken bones, separate shoulder, torn groin, broken jaw… All injuries guys have played with in the playoffs.

What this also means is that even the vague upper/lower body injury or flu-like symptoms are too specific. Now? Day-to-day is all you’re going to get. Zero information about injuries.

Staff are also sworn to secrecy about player injuries. No, I did not see our first line center limp around with a knee brace, that’s absurd.

Losing on the road in the playoffs sucks. The whole team takes over the hotel bar and just wallows in it, knowing that it's the last time this group is going to be together. You sometimes also have to dodge rioters.

I have had to hide the logo on my team gear post-game multiple times in fear of getting jumped.

I don’t have a Stanley Cup ring so I cannot tell you how it feels to win that trophy :( However I do have a different championship ring and can confirm the feeling is indescribable. Parades are super fun if not incredibly exhausting.

Front office staff get Stanley Cup rings as well, though they aren’t as extravagant as the players and also take up a good chunk of your meager salary. Worth it.

After the season, whether the team lost in the playoffs or missed it entirely, there’s a day dubbed “locker cleanout day” that serves as the final media availability of the season before all the Canadians go to their cottages and the Europeans return overseas. The players answer a bunch of questions and then also sign hundreds of pucks/jerseys/etc for the team’s foundation.

There’s usually also a dayger for all the front office staff that work with the players after cleanout day wraps: media relations, foundation, community, content, and social. It’s pretty much required that you get drunk at 2pm on a Tuesday at the go-to bar.

Players have meetings at the end of the year with the GM to talk about their future, the team’s future, and their experience in general. The GM uses this info to inform the direction of the team at the draft and in free agency, as well as if that player will continue to be a fit or not.

Chapter 2

I knew I wouldn’t cover everything in the first installment, and miss things I did. Here is the second part of my inside baseball hockey guide, mostly focusing on questions I’ve received but also inspired by various comments I’ve seen elsewhere. As always, additional questions are always welcome! 

---

Q&A
Questions from users that I’ve answered in the comments, but want to make available here as well. 

 

There’s a separate group chat that excluded Gritty. Is there a story there?

Honestly, it’s pure jealousy. A lot of the mascot performers have been doing their jobs for years, if not decades. They had been trying to get a national spotlight and notoriety that entire time, usually on their own, since mascot operations was always seen as a separate thing from marketing or even community relations. And here comes Gritty, with the entire Philly marketing and game ops teams behind him, immediately booking late night talk shows.

Those hurt feelings may be healed by now, but Gritty was a touchy subject for the first year after he debuted.

 

On the road are the teams doing hotel breakfast or is there special arrangements? I've seen that a lot in fics and it seems so public that I've always doubted it.

As part of the hotel room block the team reserves, they usually reserve a big ballroom or conference room as well where they host team meals. There is an official time for team breakfast where the team is expected to be down by, and they basically have a buffet provided by the hotel. Nobody outside of the team and staff are allowed at the breakfast.

This is distinct from a team meal, which is usually postgame after an afternoon game or on a practice day on the road, where the entire team goes out to a restaurant. This has to be separately arranged - usually with a private room - because the group is so big.

 

And I imagine the GM is responsible for trades? The coach can give input, but they don't sign the checks.

Yes, the GM (general manager) is responsible for trades!

…Is the simple answer. Some teams have a management structure that also has a President of Hockey Operations that oversees the GM, and that person is sometimes the one responsible for trades. Sometimes a coach, if they have enough power or sway in the organization, can help facilitate a trade. Sometimes an owner, if they are meddlesome enough, will also be the one to execute trades.

A coach typically is consulted, usually around usage or to get a second opinion, but does not have final say.

The separation of powers is helpful as the coach has a lot of day-to-day contact with the players, while a GM is more big picture-focused. This means that - ideally - a GM won’t have hesitation making necessary moves due to personal feelings. It also allows players to - ideally - be mad at the GM for trades/contracts/sent to the minors rather than the coach.

 

Do you have or know of any more detailed information on the draft process, combine, etc? I've been watching hockey long enough that I know a decent amount about the game day realities but tbh I never paid much attention to the draft and how it works >_> In particular why some guys get drafted at like 17 and some at 19 and some go to college first even though they were drafted before college? And the whole like pre-draft process.

Whew okay. The NHL is somewhat unique among the big four of NHL, NFL, NBA, and MLB, especially in terms of drafts.

Any player who turns 18 by September 15 of their draft year is eligible to be drafted. There’s no declaring for the draft or opting in/out or anything. An NHL team could draft somebody who had never stepped onto the ice before as long as they turned 18 by September 15 that year.

(This would, presumably, mean that almost all dogs are too young to play in the NHL, preventing an Air Bud scenario except in the case of those crusty old chihuahuas).

If a player does not get drafted, they can sign as a free agent with a team or be eligible for the draft the next year - which is what leads to the 19-year-olds getting drafted. They are referred to as “overagers” and usually have to be viewed with some caution as they have that extra year of development compared to their peers; usually around 26 is when players hit their peaks.

The whole college thing is a little murky with NIL and recent eligibility rulings, but I’ll try to simplify it.

For North American (US and Canada) prospects, there are generally two tracks for pre-professional development: major junior and college.

Major junior, or the CHL, is a semi-pro league for 16 to 20 year-olds based largely in Canada and made up of three leagues (QMJHL, OHL, and WHL). This is where Canadians largely go, and traditionally has been the track for top prospects. It used to be that because players received a stipend for playing major junior, they were deemed ineligible to play NCAA hockey, so a prospect would usually choose CHL or NCAA by the time that they were 15 or so. That’s no longer the case, so you see players hop between the two now.

College hockey, or NCAA D1 hockey, tends to be more American, though that has changed recently. It has more of an emphasis on strength training and development - since it trends older, with players up to 24 or even 26 years old - and has fewer games. Players that go the NCAA route usually play in the USHL or NTDP first, which are lower-level junior leagues.

Another quirk of the NHL draft: once drafted, a player’s rights are held by the NHL team for a number of years even without signing. Don’t like the team? Well, you either have to wait out your rights to expire and refuse to sign and hope that you’re wanted by your preferred team, or force a trade. Neither of those things endear you to a fanbase or league.

Yet another quirk: a player in major juniors can sign an entry-level contract and have it slide (e.g. not be in effect) for a number of years while they play in that league. If a player in college hockey signs their contract, they’re automatically ineligible for the NCAA and must turn pro.

NHL teams often view major juniors and college teams as additional development time for their draft picks, and will work with those teams on development plans. For all but the top players, it helps when players are able to play big minutes against lower level competition versus throwing them into the fire and playing them 5 minutes against the best players in the world.

Similarly, international prospects are often encouraged to stay with their European clubs, as they tend to face older players and a higher level of competition while still playing big minutes, until they’re ready to take the jump to North America.

(There are also rules about international prospects in the CHL and the NIL doesn’t apply to anybody not a US citizen so lots of other factors at play).

For the combine, the top players are invited to test out their physical fitness level in front of NHL scouts. This is especially important given how international hockey is, so not all teams are able to watch all the leagues. I've never attended a combine so I can't speak to the actual behind-the-scenes of it all. Usually it’s in Buffalo though. And honestly a great setting for a Heated Rivalry fic.

In terms of the player actually being drafted, they can choose to show up to the draft location and go through the whole gauntlet of media process, but that's on their own dime. (This is where I need to remind you that hockey is, ostensibly, a rich person’s sport).

Some guys will get calls from the GM about being drafted, but a lot initially find out through the media, especially the later round picks. Afterwards, they're contacted by the team, and are usually immediately flown out to the team's city to take part in the annual prospect development camp for the next five days or so with the other draft picks that year as well as previous year's picks, undrafted free agents, and team nepo babies.

I also want to say this because I’ve seen it a lot: top players will play in the NHL immediately. Rarely does the first overall pick spend another year in development, mostly because a team in position to get the first overall pick doesn’t have enough talent to block the 18-year-old. Second- and third-overall picks also usually immediately make the jump to the NHL, but that’s less of a guarantee. As you go deeper in the draft, more years of development are needed.

Also, only 17 or 18 year olds will be drafted first overall under the current draft format (don’t come for me for when the NHL Entry Draft only drafted 20-year-olds). I don’t care how good they are in college, if they’re 22 they might get a free agent deal but they’re not the second coming of Sidney Crosby.

There’s also no way top prospects would play out their full four years in college. Too much of an injury risk; remember, just because they were drafted doesn’t mean they’re under contract. Have a botched sports hernia surgery in college that zaps your skating speed? Sorry, you’re no longer getting your entry level contract. Have fun with your mass communication degree that you’re barely passing, it’ll be super useful in your inevitable real estate career.

 

Could you share a bit more about what happens after a game, timing-wise? How often are road teams leaving that night vs the next morning, and how long are players and staff usually at the rink after a game? And in what order are players doing e.g. cool-down workouts, talking to players from the other team, changing/taking a shower, taking media, post-game speeches, getting minor injuries tended. It seems like a lot of things to fit in 60-90 minutes haha, not sure if there are set times for some of it.

Post-game travel depends on the schedule. If they're on a back-to-back, they are booking it out of the arena basically as fast as the equipment guys can manage it (max 1 hour in my experience). If they aren't pressed for time, it's a lot more relaxed.

For the order of things, I would say:

• Post-game speeches/award to player of the game/victory song as soon as they get into the room. This sounds like a lot, but honestly they can get it all wrapped up in the time it takes for the media to get down from the press box and to the dressing room
• Talking to media
• Checking in with the trainers around injuries/etc (that happens concurrently with the media)
• Showers (also concurrent with the media - some guys still have their base layers during media, some guys just have a towel, some guys have their gameday outfit based on when they’re called for media)
• Talking to players with other teams is usually the last thing after they're basically all dressed to leave, especially if the dressing rooms are on opposite sides of the arena

This goes out the window for day games when it’s not a back-to-back, as there’s usually also kids running around and dinner plans being made.

You have to remember that these guys are doing this 82 (now 84) times per year at minimum. They’ve got it down to a science, so while it sounds like a lot it really is just a collection of 5 minute tasks.

 

I can't even comprehend playing with a collapsed lung or broken jaw! Like, how?!?!?!

Yeah. It’s something of a tradition for a team to release a list of injuries after their playoff run ended, and it’s crazy to see what’s on the list. Like, broken toes, broken fingers, and sprained ankles are pretty much expected. One guy lost 16 teeth (in that instance you could see it happened and didn’t have to guess). One guy played on a torn ACL/MCL. Separated shoulders, broken legs, illness… It’s the playoffs. You play through it.

I mean, I wasn’t a player, but I got the one-two punch of a minor cold turned sinus infection that made me go temporarily deaf in one ear during one playoff run. Still was flying cross-country every 2-3 days. You push through it.

 

Would Montreal to Ottawa be a plane or a bus ride?

Plane!

Seriously, anything over an hour by car (barring traffic) would be plane. Especially since road trips are usually multi-city, they’d need to fly the plane to the next airport regardless. Might as well have the team on it.

Note: that is not the case for when teams go between Los Angeles and Anaheim. That is a bus ride for the team, but the pilots do literally fly the plane from LAX to John Wayne to make post-game travel easy.

 

There's multiple coaches right? Who's usually under the head coach?

The number of NHL coaches has exploded over the past couple of decades, but there's a head coach, at least two assistant coaches (sometimes called associate coaches, depends on the coach and their seniority - sometimes an associate coach is a former head coach who was hired to take over the team on an interim basis if the current head coach is fired), a goalie coach, and a video coach. The video coach is usually in an office or in the press box during games and is the one reviewing video, catching things to be challenged, etc.

I once read a published book where the video coach was able to get permission to watch the game later and nope took me right out of it.

There are also additional coaches on staff called “development coaches” that serve as extra hands during development camp, rookie camp, and training camp. They work with the prospects for the most part, and provide more one-on-one time to help develop certain skills versus the main coaching staff, which is thinking more holistically.

 

Do you know anything about who is on the medical staff? Like, are there MDs on staff or is it mostly trainers?

All teams have doctors - really, they have a whole team of doctors. Usually contracted through the local hospital (who is invariably a corporate sponsor), the doctors have a variety of specialties but usually tend to be orthopedic, sports medicine, and emergency surgery. They don’t travel with the team, and provide care to anybody who is injured in their home city.

This is more recent, but teams have also started employing team psychologists, which is awesome.

There’s also athletic trainers, who do travel with the team and provide the day-to-day and more minor care. They’re usually the ones you see sprint across the ice in gloves with their little apron full of supplies when one of the boys goes down.

 

What is the training/licensing process for coaches? I read an (otherwise excellent) fic recently where Shane gets hired immediately after retirement to work as a video coach for the Raiders, and that struck me as odd. And I vaguely remember that when Brad Marchand went to fill as a coach for a kid's team in Halifax so his friend who usually coached the team could take bereavement leave, he had to jump through some bureaucratic hoops to do it, I think? So I've been assuming that there's some process there. And I see that Hockey Canada has a certification process. But is that true for the NHL as well?

Coaching certifications are more of a “working with minors” thing than a hockey coach thing. It would be totally plausible for a player to go into coaching post-retirement without much of a resume; I’m pretty sure every team in the league has hired a just-retired player as a development coach to work with prospects/etc. with the qualification being “he played hockey, preferably with us.”

Most head and assistant coaches tend to come up the ranks through the minors and college, while video coaches have a bit more varied background.

Coaches do have to know how to skate, though. Like, that is a non-negotiable.

 

I actually have a question about the Refs. Do they have a group chat? Do they socialize with the teams much or have their own thing to stay impartial? Even being impartial i'm sure is a complicated thing as I have heard when Refs will kinda turn a blind eye for certain teams/people at times.

I am not as familiar with refs as they are a league entity and try to remain impartial so there's not a lot of interaction with team staff or media. It wouldn't surprise me if they did have a group chat. The off-ice officials are hired locally and - since it's a job where they sit and watch hockey - stay in their positions for a long time, so the team staff do get to know them to an extent.

Some of the off-ice officials do develop biases or tendencies - for the longest time, the Minnesota Wild and New York Islanders were notorious for crediting way more hits than other teams - but those tend to be pretty even for both home and visitors.

There was a notorious instance where one of the more… infamous referees Tim Peel <a href="https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nhl/news/tim-peel-suspended-puck-daddy-interview-nhl-official-greg-wyshynski/1c48dadg8xxdc1xr2by6m3uug1">had shots with and gave an interview to a reporter a night before a game</a>, which got him suspended. The NHL generally does not allow officials to speak to the media, unlike a lot of other sports.

 

Super specific nerd question - what tech do the players use? Like are Shane and Ilya in a Whatsapp group with their teammates or is everything iPhones/iMessage? Are there certain group chat rules or official vs unofficial chats?

The teams I worked for used text group chats, and yes there were the dreaded green bubbles a lot of the time.

There wasn't a single group chat. From the ones that were consistently around, there was a full team one, one with the team plus the traveling staff (media relations, team services, etc), and one with the team and media relations only. I'm sure there were separate fantasy football ones, country-specific ones, etc.

There was also a team plus traveling staff minus all the women chat, which is less fun to think about.

 

Also it's crazy to picture professional athletes using like Microsoft Office but like they have to be using *something* right? Do they have work emails like jjones@anaheim that coaching staff is using to let them know about practice? Is there an Outlook calendar with the entire season schedule?

This probably comes as a surprise: players don't get company email addresses. Only operations staff (so coaches, trainers, scouts, etc) would have something like a name@bostonraiders.com email. Players use their personal emails, which means that I saw a LOT of hotmail, AOL, comcast, yahoo, gmail, etc email domains. This also means the email address formats ranged from professional - ilyarozanov81@hotmail.com - to not as much - bigtuna67@gmail.com.

While there is email communication sent around, you also have to remember that players didn't go to college to play school (if they even went to college, which most did not); Outlook calendars aren't really a thing. Hell, they were barely a thing in the front office among business ops. Most of the time, it was the team services guy texting an image of a Word doc that had the homestand/road trip schedule. Changes were also communicated via text or on the whiteboard in the room. Sometimes we got a print out.

Teams did have ways to download calendars - I think Stanza was one of the vendors? - but that was a public-facing thing, not internal scheduling.

 

---

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
THAT MAY OR MAY NOT BE INSPIRED BY CURRENT EVENTS

 

Shooting a puck at the glass by someone in order to startle them is incredibly common. I would have been worried, quite frankly, if I was standing by the glass and one of the boys didn’t shoot the puck at the glass.

The marketing look and feel (slogans, fonts, etc) are fully designed in July, finalized in August, and produced in September. The volatility of rosters and tight timeline for production is a big reason why teams went away from physical and collectible season tickets - not super fun to have people complaining that Gord Hockeyplayer was featured on a ticket for that night’s game but he was traded a month ago and the tickets printed five months ago.

To add onto that, that’s another reason why it seems like the same players are featured on giveaways. Most of them have long production timelines, so the marketing departments want to make sure that the guy will still be on the team. Leaning into alumni is another way to prevent having 20,000 bobbleheads of a guy that is no longer on the team.

Yes, someone did once steal Pittsburgh’s Jaromir Jagr bobbleheads. Yes, it was a mess. Yes, I admire how the marketing team reacted to it all.

Playoff marketing is usually conceptualized in the final month of the regular season. Since we sometimes don’t find out about the opponent - or even if we’re in - until a couple days before the series starts, it’s a real broad campaign.

Some teams do try to personalize it based on opponent. They’ll basically come up with versions for each possible opponent and adjust based on outcome. As a reminder, this is the time of the year when everyone is working 80-100 hour weeks and weekends aren’t optional.

Why do teams give out rally towels and tshirts for playoff games instead of something bigger? Because the towel and shirt vendors can turn around 20,000 of those babies within 48 hours.

For championship merch, there’s a central factory that will produce the first wave of gear the night of the win. Team store managers then drive out at 2AM to pick up their order of the gear in order to have it by the time the store opens - we opened at 6AM the day after a championship win and already had a line wrapped around the stadium.

Announcement leaks happen CONSTANTLY. To the point where if something is kept secret, it’s a surprise. The NHL even went as far as having a legal tampering period prior to free agency opening because it got a little ridiculous how many free agents were signing massive, complicated deals the minute it opened (or that said deals leaked prior to noon ET on July 1).

Also the NHL (and its teams) can’t get out of their own way on this. They’ll make jerseys available online ahead of the announcement, have standees/physical media of new jerseys up ahead of time, send out emails before they were supposed to go, etc. It’s to the point where - if a team is making a big announcement - some teams plan contingencies for leaks. Extra videos to throw the trail off, teasers to wink at the confirmation, etc. So many things go into making an announcement or launching a new jersey that teams rarely - if ever - push up the schedule just because something was leaked.

Fun little story: when the NHL switched from Reebok to Adidas for the jersey provider, most teams used that to change up their jerseys (also because the new Adidas template didn’t support some of the Reebok designs). There was a big party in Vegas scheduled, all teams were supposed to release the Adidas-created videos at the same time, that sort of thing. Well back then, the NHL web CMS required teams to manually upload videos through a portal, at which point a human on the NHL side would schedule and push the video live. Theoretically you could schedule for a video to go live at a certain time after, say, a jersey embargo has lifted. Theoretically. The St. Louis Blues tried to do that as soon as they received the assets, but whoever was covering the NHL CMS at the time pushed that video live several days ahead of time. Adidas freaked out, and immediately locked access to their DAM several days ahead of launch. Then they forgot to unlock it. And they were all at the Vegas party. So nobody could post the launch videos.

For games, players park in and around the loading docks of arenas. They’re gated off with a security guard, and sometimes the area is underground. Each player has an assigned spot. It’s in the same area that the opposing team’s bus arrives and leaves from, so there’s only one dedicated metal detector/security setup for the players.

Staff parking is either in the arena lot or a separate lot far away from the arena. Sometimes you have to pay.

For preseason games, teams will often fly in and out the same day. In the regular season and playoffs, the team will do whatever it takes to not travel the same day as a game.

It wasn’t until post-COVID, when the dress codes relaxed, that the plane dress codes also relaxed. Until then, players and staff were still required to adhere to the gameday dress code - which meant suits (or somewhere between business casual and business professional, for the layperson). Players were not wearing gear with team logos onto the plane. Now, after they got on the plane is a different story; more than a few guys changed into athleisure once wheels were up. But they were not wearing hoodies.

Speaking of COVID: staff were segregated into essential and non-essential. Basically, people who were around the team and people who weren’t. People around the team had to take their temperature every morning and submit it via an app, and then go to the arena to take a nasal swab to get tested every single day. Didn’t matter if you were off that day or if the team was travelling and you stayed behind, you had to test daily.

You also were required to wear KN-95 masks. If you tested positive, you were sent home/potentially fired because you obviously broke protocol.

During lockouts, attention shifted to the AHL teams versus NHL teams. Front offices are not allowed to have any contact with the players/anyone part of the NHLPA, so there was a lot of trying to come up with ways to keep fans engaged.

To be honest, we were all planning for a lockout in 2022. COVID - and the return-to-play protocols that had to be implemented in reaction - was the only reason we didn’t have one. I mean, either way a bunch of front office staff would have gotten laid off and/or furloughed, so it didn’t matter too much to us.

All teams have shitty players. Whether they are bad at hockey or bad at being people, every team has at least one. Usually multiple. (Always multiple). Those teams have to promote those players regardless of personal feelings. Disagree politically? Player has a rap sheet? Multiple accusations against that guy? Unfortunately, if he’s on the roster, the team is not going to paint him in a bad light.

However, a random mediocre player is getting featured a lot? That player is personable, easy to work with, and willing to spend extra time at the rink. It doesn’t mean they are a “Good Person,” but it does mean that they work well with the business ops side of things.