The Hockey News' Money & Power 2026 hockey business annual is available at THN.com/free [https://thehockeynews.store/products/print-subscription?variant=43024837509254], 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 chief revenue and business officer for Philadelphia Flyers owner Comcast Spectacor, Todd Glickman. Here's their full conversation in The Hockey News' True Hockey Talk: Read along with an excerpt from their discussion: W. GRAEME ROUSTAN: Ed Snider was special, not only here in Philadelphia but leaguewide. He was very instrumental in the growth and expansion of the game, wasn't he? TODD GLICKMAN: He really was one of the founders of SMG, which was Spectacor Management at the time. And while he had a deep passion for the Flyers, there was equally as deep of a passion for the venue-management business. And that's really where I started. I just didn't know it at the time. I got a job in Albany, and it was managed by a company called Spectacor Management Group. I was like, "OK, whatever." And I come down to the Spectrum, and that is the headquarters of that business. That's where my eyes really opened up. WGR: Mr. Snider was a founder and a trailblazer. He started from really nothing. He just got into the business and got the franchise. And he's a legendary figure in hockey. Everybody knows him. Now, the new guy running the show here is Dan Hilferty. All owners and all people that run these franchises have different personalities, and they bring different skills to the game. How has it been for you to work with Dan? And in comparison to Mr. Snider, is there a way you can sort of distinguish them? TG: Yeah, there are such deep similarities and very deep differences. And I sit in a unique position. This is my 35th season with the organization. Now, I ascended to where, over time, I was interacting with Ed on a much different level. But when Dan came in, I'd heard about him but had never met him. My first go-around was a lunch meeting. It popped up on my calendar and said: "Meeting with Dan Hilferty." And I was like, "OK, I think we're going to go talk about something else," and we had a two-hour lunch. And he knew all my background. It was masterful now that I look back at it. So we had a great lunch conversation. And he drops me off at the building and pulls away. And then I see the car come back, and he beeps. He waves me back in, and he rolls down the window and says, "Hey, you're sticking around, right?" And I said, "Am I?" And that, for me, was the beginning of where I'm at in my career – a very special, different journey. When I think back on it, honestly, when you go through your career, you're being taught in terms of how to do your job every step of the way. You're being trained, and you're working it. You've got a boss. Your boss has a boss, and you're being coached along the way. When you get to different positions or as you get later in your career, and I ascended into this role, that manual is not there anymore. And I think with Dan, the specialty is he has the ability to teach. He's empathetic. He's passionate, and he can be tough, but he can be really fair. And that is very similar to Mr. Snider. He could be tough but very fair. And if you have loyalty, Dan gives it back tenfold. And so, the three years I've been with him, I feel like I'm constantly learning, whether it's human interaction or customer interaction. Glickman says AI has a role in service, but people are still needed to create "meaningful relationships." (Connor Somerville-The Hockey News) [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/a1c06657-3df5-4df9-9494-5e3ccc8864a4.jpeg] Glickman says AI has a role in service, but people are still needed to create "meaningful relationships." (Connor Somerville-The Hockey News) WGR: Today, we're living in a world where everybody's talking about AI. How does AI and this new wave that's coming at you impact your business? TG: That's a great question. I was just speaking at a conference about that. There were a lot of smart people up there talking. There were probably five or six of us, and that was the closing question. And luckily, I was near the end, and everybody gave the next best answer, right? I'm watching in awe of these guys and gals giving answers, and the alphabet soup was coming out of this and that. And I was thinking to myself, and when it came to me, they said, "How are you thinking about it?" And I said, "Hey, I'm just thinking about selling the next empty seat that I've got." And in sports, we have to balance right now because we are at the crossroads of technology versus sales force. And how does that work with our customers, our Flyers season-ticket base and our concert-goers? How do we communicate with them? And there is a balance of it. Now, I don't want to ever say that there'll never be a day where it's AI driven, where we've got the bots and the emails going out, but I look at our sales forces as we are the first and last line of defense. We can only control the controllables. We cannot control what's going out on that ice. We just can't do it. And I would think in my 35 years, if I looked at my winning percentage from the team perspective, I'm probably hovering around .500, maybe a little below. It depends on the count of the last eight years, going from Spectra to coming back here. I've got to control the controllables, right? So I need to balance the tools that I'm giving our folks, which we do. We have some AI-driven stuff that I like to say helps clear the deck, but I need sales executives that can go out and create meaningful relationships on a one-on-one basis that are going to bring Graeme to the stadium. We have very smart, passionate and astute fans. I can't have a bot firing out there to them or an email that's going out there to them. That is not going to get it done. It's just not. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more interviews with a deep look into the world of the hockey business, check out The Hockey News' Money & Power 2026 issue, available at THN.com/free [https://thehockeynews.store/products/print-subscription?variant=43024837509254].
