During a recent casual conversation with someone who has been intimately involved in the NHL for decades, he jokingly said this: “You ever think that all of these off-ice officials are actually the same people in every arena?”
It was a funny take on this gaggle of people in each city who keep the official stats for the league, sitting up in press boxes all clad in starched white shirts and black blazers with the NHL shield sewn to the breast pocket (and into their hearts). The overwhelming majority of them are retired white men with poorly veiled rooting interests in the home team.