If you're thin-skinned, you don't belong doing what I do for a living.

The fact is, I view part of what I do is, if necessary, on difficult issues, be the lightning rod.

When you look at the team that Jimmy Rutherford has put together and the players that he has, this is just a great story of excellent in professional sports.

I know when you're in the business of cover sports, you look for 60-minute games and a result. It's never that simple.

If you're a sports fan, it is really cool when you see the best-on-best for hockey at the Olympics.

I view myself as a dealmaker.

I never rule anything in or out; life can surprise you.

Having to respond to things that are made up or untrue tends to be a waste of time.

I think the media world is adjusting to the digital age.

There is less fighting in the game than we had years ago. I mean, we penalize it.

I was always a fan of the game, and I wouldn't have taken this job if I wasn't a fan of the game.

Our sport probably has the best history and tradition of being engaged in international competition.

When you're in other time zones in other places, you don't get quite as much attention; you don't get quite as much visibility for the game, and you give up a lot to do it.

It's not about big markets or small markets. It's not about dominant teams or not. It's about the actual competition and how good the games are, how good the series turn out. That's what I think is the most important for fans.

None of our series are ever static in terms of the dates. We always have a range of flexibility to respond to whatever may or may not happen.

Obviously, we're focused on the Winter Classic.

While players say they like the five-day break, they're also saying they don't like the compression that goes along with it, and that's something that is of great concern to us as well.

We'll have clinics and educational events and conferences to get more and more young players developing as hockey players.

I would hope there would be a greater appreciation by casual sports fans of the incredible skill and passion of our players.

Young people, particularly in their teens and 20s, are not consuming sports the way my generation did. They are doing lots of things; they are multitasking. They are getting downloads; they are getting alerts on their computers or on their cellphones, and they are consuming sports in a more real-time but less full-time basis.

Our franchises have never been healthier. Our league, in terms of its economic footing, has never been healthier.

We encourage the growth of women's hockey.

On the issue of behavioral health and the like, the program we have in place has always been available to former players as well.

I don't think taunting chants at players on the other side of the ice is intended to be sexist in the slightest. It's like when you call a goaltender a sieve, they chant that. Is that now inappropriate also?