The Graeme Roustan Show: Bryan Crawford

The Hockey News' Money and Power 2025 hockey business annual is available at THN.com/free, featuring the annual 100 people of power and influence list.

W. Graeme Roustan, owner and publisher of The Hockey News, sat down with special guests for peer-to-peer conversations also featured in the issue, including OHL commissioner Bryan Crawford.

Here's their full conversation in The Graeme Roustan Show:

Read along with an excerpt from their discussion:

W. GRAEME ROUSTAN: I want to go back in time and find out a little bit about how you started out in sports and where you grew up because I read your bio and I thought it was fascinating. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about it?

BRYAN CRAWFORD: I grew up a AAA hockey player playing in the Hamilton system. I discovered football pretty late, towards the end of high school, and found out that I liked this sport a little bit. I decided that’s what I want to do, play football with my friends. I was lucky that it eventually turned into an opportunity to go to Queen’s University and from there, into the CFL as a Toronto Argonaut for a long career. I got the chance to play with some great guys in Toronto, play for ‘Pin ball’ (Michael Clemons) as the coach and really have a great experience to get started in life. That’s kind of where my pro playing career started, and it led into sport admin from there.

WGR: As a role model, isn’t that something that you can’t learn in a school, you can’t learn in an MBA program, this is something that you can only learn and really understand by being a professional athlete?

BC: I think that’s what’s amazing about being an athlete in general, especially a high-level athlete, and that’s why us as parents put our kids into sports. We want them to learn these great skills that they can take with them in their life and become great contributors to society. That’s why it’s fun and you learn these valuable skills. I think that’s ultimately what also drew me to this role. We have this noble mandate of developing young people as well as supporting the communities that we’re in, and I get to pair that with getting to run this dynamic sport-and entertainment property. To be able to blend those two things together, this noble mission with the business side, that’s a pretty unique opportunity in the sports-executive landscape. To get to come into this role and do those things, it’s special.

WGR: You’re charting your own course, your own vision for the Ontario Hockey League, and you’ve got a lot of street cred, so what is your vision for the OHL going forward?

BC: First and foremost, you absolutely have to be your own leader. You can’t be someone else. You have to be authentic in that way. Having David (Branch) accessible, and being able to learn from him and gather some of that knowledge that he’s built over such a long career, is incredibly valuable for me. But at the end of the day, you have to be authentic and you have to lead in your way.

For our league, I want it to be revered as a best-in-class example of what can be accomplished. Of what sport can mean for communities. Of how we can impact the lives of not only the people in our league but the fans of our league and all of the community that supports it. Those are pieces that I think are meaningful beyond just the wins and losses. The way that I look at it is, developing our young people, developing our communities, those are the priorities. That is our goal and our objective. Developing players for the National Hockey League and for our national teams, that’s all a by-product of doing a great job in those other areas. I’d love to see us have in credible success on the business side, because ultimately we’re selling a sport- and-entertainment property. And putting an additional level of focus on there, that we can be as respected and as revered as a sport business as we are as a hockey business, those are the things we’ll seek to achieve in the coming years as we move forward, grow our league and grow hockey ultimately.

WGR: You’ve got a product you’re selling. The product is very good to start with, but what is it that you want to do to make it even better?

BC: One of the biggest challenges is speaking to people, communicating with people, and the way that they consume these sports-entertainment products. As the market and people’s tastes change, and the way that they engage changes, we have to change as well. We’re selling the in-game experience, and it has to be best in class. It has to be an experience that people want to come out and be a part of.

They’re coming out to support the name on the front. They’re saying, “We’re coming out, we’re a supporter of that team because it’s connected to our experience in the community that we live in.” But ultimately, it’s got to be a great time. There’s got to be a reason. You have to want to be there and share in that experience. So, that’s one piece, continuing to advance what that in-game experience is. From there, it’s advancing what our experience is when it comes to our social and digital-broadcast networks because that’s the other way that we’re selling our game. Not just in-venue but digitally as well. It’s about finding ways that we can speak to new fans, new segments of fans, sports socialites, new Canadians, to invite them in and share with them what our league is all about, and that’s representing them in their communities. I think that we can do that.

Last year, we had one of the best years on record in terms of the number of fans in the building and number of people watching. We’re also growing again this year and headed in that direction. We’re investing more time and energy into marketing the league, building the brand in that way and finding new ways to bring the game to new people.

For this conversation, more interviews and a deep look into the world of the hockey business, check out The Hockey News' Money and Power 2025 issue, available at THN.com/free.