The writer and journalist Craig Custance, Head of Creative Development at The Athletic, discusses his new book The Franchise: The Business of Building Winning Teams (Simon & Schuster, 2024), with Joseph Planta.

The Franchise: The Business of Building Winning Teams by Craig Custance (Simon & Schuster, 2024). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: The Franchise

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

One of the more readable books of this past fall is the latest by Craig Custance. In The Franchise: The Business of Building Winning Teams, he talks to several notable general managers, a couple of owners, and an Olympic medalist (Meghan Duggan), who all play senior roles in various NHL franchises. What Mr. Custance, who joins me now, gleans from his frank, personal conversations is how each one dealt with the various problems that teams encounter on the road to winning the Stanley Cup. Whether it’s juggling a salary cap, or trading a player, or how to deal with the interpersonal issues of professional athletes, the book is full of great stories. In his conversations with Jim Rutherford, currently the Canucks President of Hockey Operations, who for many years headed up the Pittsburgh NHL team leading it to back-to-back Stanley Cup wins, Rutherford is revealed to be successful at listening to everybody he encounters, especially a team’s ownership. In conversations with Tampa Bay’s Julian BriseBois or the Penguins’s Kyle Dubas, we learn about how the path to managing in the NHL may not have come from having played the game. Brad Treliving, Jim Nill, and Lou Lamoriello, among others, each provide great insights in their interviews with Craig for this book. All have principles that have guided them to success and sustained them through losses. There’s no one formula to get to a winning team, but taken as a whole the book provides an appreciation on how to manage an operation as complex as a professional hockey team, or anything else for that matter. And all of them read a lot. It’s fun seeing all the various books that people in the book recommend as necessary reading. If you go to Craig’s website at www.CraigCustance.com you can get a PDF checklist. Craig Custance is an acclaimed writer, who has covered hockey at ESPN and The Athletic. His previous book is Behind the Bench: Inside the Minds of Hockey’s Greatest Coaches. He also hosted the interview podcast The Full 60. Currently he is the head of creative development at The Athletic, a New York Times company. The book is published by Simon and Schuster. Craig joined me from Detroit earlier this week. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Craig Custance; Mr. Custance, good morning.

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