BREAKING: NHL has begun to prepare for Gary Bettman’s retirement in ‘a few years’

St. Paul, Minn. – The NHL Board Executive Committee has begun planning Gary Bettman’s retirement on “A few years” and has started the process of finding a successor to the longest-sitting commissioner in North American sport, Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold said on a podcast on Wednesday and clarified with more details during a phone call with Athletics On Thursday.

Leipold was asked Wednesday if he had any concerns about the game’s business during a performance it The Sick Podcast/The Eye Test with Pierre McGuire and Jimmy Murphy. He emerged about where things stand with the league before adding his lonely concern: “The fact that Gary retires.”

Leipold said it would be a sad day when Bettman, commissioner for almost 32 years, wasn’t part of the league, “but it’s a few years along the way and we’re in the process of planning now and we’re have to make sure we get it right when he goes. ”

Leipold, one of the owners of the Executive Board’s Business Committee, elaborated during his conversation with Athletics.

“Listen, we’re like a $ 5 business a business – $ 6 billion – the whole league is,” he said. “So we have a CEO who will move on and every transition would make us worried. And then in reality, all I said we have had a commissioner now for 30 years, maybe a little more and he has been excellent.

“Now we go over to another and it should make us all a little worried that we need to be sure we’re getting the right person. It’s a concern that I feel: ‘How should we get someone so Good as Gary? ‘ The answer is that we are not.

When asked if the Executive Committee had begun the formal process of finding Bettman’s successor, Leipold said, “I would say we have.”

However, Leipold did not realize that Bettman had not formally announced his plans to retire.

Bettman randomly participated in Thursday night’s Wild match against Utah Hockey Club and met with Athletics Alone in Leipold’s suite prior to the match.

Bettman, 72, said he has not decided when to retire, but brought his final pension up to the Executive Committee for the first time prior to last month’s board meeting in Manalapan, FLA.

“I raised the ghost that at some point this is something the league will have to deal with, because when you are dealing with a CEO that has done this as long as I have done it is a More complicated process, “Bettman said. “But the only discussion that was had was with over three decades at this job at one point the league has to deal with the reality that I can’t do this forever.”

Bettman was appointed NHL Commissioner on February 1, 1993 and has already surpassed Clarence Campbell for the longest office among any leader in the league’s history. The NHL has grown from 24 to 32 teams on his guard and pursued a strategy of expansion to the southern United States. It has also become a business of almost $ 7 billion a year.

Bettman was also at the forefront of four work stoppages, including a lockout that wiped out the entire 2004-05 season before the introduction of a pay ceiling.

There has been increasing interest in Bettman’s future as his term of office extended into a fourth decade with the league, as well as many speculation about a succession that could even see the reins switched to Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly. Bettman has repeatedly turned away questions about the subject.

The eyebrows were further lifted in November when the NHL gave promotions to several senior employees – exalted Steve Mcardle to Chief Operating Officer, Keith Wachtel to President of NHL Business, Steve Mayer to President of NHL Content and Events and Julie Grand to Daly’s Chief of Staff. – In a series of features that seem to be made with the long -term future of the league’s headquarters in mind.

But while Bettman said it would be irresponsible for him not to let the Governance Council begin preparations for life without him, he insisted that he never told the Leipold and the Executive Committee Timeline for his possible departure.

“I just wanted to put it on their radar,” Bettman told Athletics. “When you don’t have the energy and passion, you have to think about it. The good news is that I have the energy and I have the passion. I love what I am doing and in fact I enjoy doing what I do, probably more than I would ever enjoy retiring.

“I’m not wired to retire.”

(Photo: Joel Auerbach / Getty Images)