How the NHL Grew Up

Gary Bettman and I were comparing fitness notes one day in Toronto in the early 1990s, just after he had been picked as the National Hockey League’s first commissioner.

I told him I ran about an hour a day, maybe four times a week.

“With hills?” he asked, eyes alight, hoping for the correct answer. “Ah, no,” was my defeated reply. I loped along easy flat routes. Bettman ran hills. Early in the morning. Every morning. And with a degree of dedication I did not possess and would never attain.

That physical and mental toughness became a weapon in Bettman’s leadership arsenal as he guided the NHL over two of its most turbulent—and arguably, most successful—decades.

In his archive-based book, The NHL: A...