NEW YORK (AP) There is usually another guest at the table when Gary Bettman and his wife Authentic Carlton Fisk Jersey , Shelli, go out to dinner with other couples during the NHL playoffs.

Friends come to accept the glow of the TV screen set up so Bettman can keep an eye on games, ready to go from enjoying a nice meal to running a multibillion-dollar business and back again. The commissioner of a storied league with 24 teams in the United States and seven in Canada doesn’t put work on hold for life or vice versa. When his 11-year-old grandson, Matthew Authentic Ernie Banks Jersey , wanted to hang out with him in Tampa during All-Star weekend, he brought him along for meetings.

”They all blend together because I’m never off,” Bettman said. ”It’s all part of what I do and who I am.”
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For 25 years, Bettman has overseen the growth of the NHL from $437 million in annual revenue to nearly $5 billion Wholesale John Franklin-Myers Jersey , guiding the league into and out of work stoppages and expanding hockey’s reach to places that never seemed a fit for the fastest game on ice.

The Stanley Cup Final opens Monday in Las Vegas, where Bettman had a guiding hand in the expansion process that yielded the Golden Knights and led to the most successful inaugural season in league history. When he was there in November 2016 for the unveiling of the team name, Bettman was booed by the crowd and could not have cared less.

”No, no Wholesale Uchenna Nwosu Jersey , keep the booing,” he told the crowd. ”That proves you’re now an NHL city.”

Once perhaps an unlikely leader for a game with its roots north of the border, the 65-year-old lawyer from Queens who got his start in the NBA has become one of the most powerful and long-lasting influences in professional sports. . Womens Dalton Schultz Jersey , Womens Sam Hubbard Jersey , Womens Dallas Goedert Jersey , Authentic Womens Kerryon Johnson Jersey ,