NHL Internships / eventual GC Forum

[frank1477]

Hi all,

0L here, will be a 1L at Penn in the Fall.

Through my late-teens I was fortunate enough to play hockey at very high levels. I maintain my love for the sport and all major sports for that matter. I know that sports law (the 4 major leagues) is not a field of great abundance per se. That said, I would love to get a GC job with one of the four, preferably the NHL after getting a few years of biglaw experience (this seems to be the general path taken by most of the higher up lawyers for the NHL).

Is anyone familiar with 1L summer internships at the NFL or NHL? I know that there are some 12 month internships also.

FYI I think NYU would be the more "ideal" school for this route given the location but Penn gave me almost double the money and I can live at home and attend Penn.

Thanks for the help,

Frank

[DJM]

I know of a few people that had summer internships with NHL teams (Sharks, Rangers). One started 1L summer and went through 2L to eventually get full time offer. Not sure of the other. Self initiated contacts to get the internships. I have no other info about this and am not going into sports law so probably not much other help.

[Civilservant]

Why stop at GC? You can gun for commissioner, Gary Bettman isn't getting younger.

[DJM]

Why stop at GC? You can gun for commissioner, Gary Bettman isn't getting younger.

Because commissioners get booed no matter what. Especially when they decide to no go to the Olympics or not reach a CBA with the players association and cancel a season....

[frank1477]

Why stop at GC? You can gun for commissioner, Gary Bettman isn't getting younger.

Yes, I know! GC would be the start, but all good things take time! FYI they already have his replacement ready to go, but there'll be a lot of high level counsel/commish job open several years after I've been there so the timing is a bit fortuitous.

[frank1477]

Why stop at GC? You can gun for commissioner, Gary Bettman isn't getting younger.

Because commissioners get booed no matter what. Especially when they decide to no go to the Olympics or not reach a CBA with the players association and cancel a season....

All valid points. I don't mind the booing haha. I have the personality to deal with that quite well...especially that hypothetical 9.5 million makes the boos much more tolerable.

I can see both sides of the Olympic deal. Bettman just goes about things in a horrible way imho. He's not very relatable and he's very smug. He doesn't understand the fan base as well as he should. I'm sure that people around him do, but he doesn't and that is very unbecoming. Of course, it's exacerbated with hockey's fan base, a very gritty, industrious bunch. He just reeks of entitlement and pretentiousness. Those are several reasons why everyone hates him.

[BernieTrump]

Easy. Grab the next unicorn you see walking by, saddle it, and ride it to where you want to be.

This is not a realistic plan. Ending up as a GC of a large organization (any large organization) is very, very hard. Trying to end up as a GC for an enterprise when only a few dozen of the slots exist is not something you can plan for. It's ok to have hoop dreams, but you're most likely not making it to the pros. Just be sure you'll be happy doing something else.

Does it happen to people? Yes. To about 125 people with NHL franchises over the past 4 decades. Law schools graduate 40,000-50,000 students per year. Being a non-GC lawyer is more attainable, but make sure you know what they do day in and day out. Most of it had little to do with sport.