Lyle Seitz in an interview before the start of the season

The entire interview in written form
Lyle, you're heading into your 15th league season. When you look back on all those years, how do you reflect on them?
Seitz: "Well, first of all, time has flown by and it went very fast, but on the reality side of the hockey spectrum, 15 years sounds like a long time and in some realities it is, but in the evolution of the sport and in the evolution of hockey, I feel that we've been very productive as the game is growing, as our fan base is growing, as the entertainment value is growing. So, I have to honestly say and I got to give credit to the players and to the coaches, on the evolution of it all that I I'm very happy with it, but credit to them."

For someone who might not be very familiar with the term director of hockey operations, what are you responsible for and what does your typical work day look like?
Seitz: "Well, anything that happens inside the four walls of the arena. So if it's the game, if it's the coaches, if it's the players, if it's the game officials, it could be the off ice crew, it could be security, it could be anything that happens inside the four walls is basically what hockey operations are my title is. So when you reflect back and you look at a day's an average day, this time of year is obviously all about preparation, getting everything ready for the season and that's in conjunction with the coaches and the players and the game officials. So there's a lot of communication back and forth, but as the season involves, it's also about making sure we're upholding our product, making sure our product - and that includes all the grouping of different peoples that make this such a great game... And so my job in a day, it can range from anything from, you know, supplementary discipline, which is probably the negative side or the bad side, but it's something that unfortunately has to be done at times, but that's to maintain the standard of the product to simply dealing with personal issues that somebody may be having within the game that is nobody else's business, but we have to get through it for the sake of their health and stuff. So it as you can tell, it's a very wide variety, a wide scope of different things and it's any and everything to do with the game and also families and different things that have come across my table and how we're dealing with stuff so that these players, these referees, these people can be at their best."

How have the demands of your position changed in recent years?
Seitz: "Well, in one context, it's easier in the sense that our game is evolving, it's evolved to a high level, we're very competitive with any other country within Europe and on the hockey skill wise of it. But on the other side of it, the job never ends. We're always constantly evolving, we're always trying to improve. So if you look at something specific, on game officials, are we good enough? Well, we do a darn good job. The referees do a great job on the ice, but that doesn't mean we can't improve. We got to be better. And when it comes to the coaches, they coach their teams, they do their things. It's not my business to tell them how to coach and I don't. They know a lot more about it than I do, but it's our business collectively to make sure that we're putting this great product on the ice and we're giving our fans their money's worth and making sure that the game is portrayed in the correct way. So, you know, it's just one of those things. It's evolving all the time but it's changing... So if I look back 15 years ago and we're trying to set up rules, we're trying to set up regulations, we're trying to set everything up, that's in place. Now, how do we evolve the game further and further?"

How do you organize collaboration and communication with the coaches of all the clubs?
Seitz: "Well, it's everything from a multitude of phone calls a week, a lot of emails a day. But I I would say more in a grand scheme of things, it's more to do with the communication with all parties involved. So coaches, players, referees, we're all in the same game together. We compete, the teams compete against each other, yet we're still in the same business. So the art of communication as far as trying to collectively bring all these groups together is really done through video. It's done through voiceovers. It's done through, you know, maybe something in the past week was done possibly incorrectly by the officials, possibly by the league, possibly by whatever. And it's our job collectively saying, okay, this happened, we can do it better and this is what's going to happen moving forward."

You spent a long time working in the NHL. How do the interactions and communications with coaches and players in North America differ from those in Europe?
Seitz: "That's a great question. There's a lot of differences. So let's just break down our win2day ICE Hockey League and look at the simple fact that we have four different countries playing and within that we have three predominant different languages going. So when you look at somebody like the NHL, it's one language, it's two countries, but they're very similar. So when you start talking about communication, if you're a referee on the ice, everything is English on the ice and is it a strong language for you or not? Do you understand English or not?... When you're dealing with the different cultures, the different governments, the different political issues, things can evolve and that all is things that occur in our league on a daily basis. That is not something that necessarily the NHL has to deal with. So even how we communicate, but more importantly in the height of the emotion of a game between coaches, players and referees, it all has it's high adrenaline, it's high emotion, but everything's got to be slowed down and they have to speak in very clear terms to each other so that it's being understood the correct way."

How important is feedback from the players, coaches and referees for you when it comes to further developing the league?
Seitz: "It's my bread and butter. It's the most important thing. I just simply manage situations, manage how like at this time of year it's what our expectations are for the season and then, you know, it's almost like a heartbeat where different times of the season we have heartbeats and I have to act or react to something. But more importantly than all of that is the simple fact that this is about the players. This is their game. So as a really good example, through the players and through a lot of communication become what we know is as the medical terms. So all our teams have a doctor now. We have proper paramedics on site. We have injury reports. We have this whole network that goes on now for player concerns, player health and the betterment of their well-being. And so it's things like that the interaction with the players is they needed this, they wanted this, it was for their health. So for me, it is in constant communications with these guys. And what fans may or may not recognize even on the ice between game officials and players, it's not all bad, it's not all negative... like, we all know the Huber situation with a brother reffing and a brother playing, but at ice level, they're both professionals, one's a referee, one's a player, they take the family out of it and the fans had a problem with it, but the teams, the players and the coaches and the referees did not. That was communication. That's dealing with the players, that's talking things. Do you have a problem with this? Is this okay? And it was."

With the Situation Room, the league became a pioneer in European ice hockey. You are also involved in the Champions Hockey League, where exciting new rules have been introduced in recent years. How does collaboration at the European level work?
Seitz: "If you take the Champions League or you take the different leagues throughout the different countries, behind the scenes we're all working together because it's like I said earlier, it's all a working art for the same business. We're all in the same sport together, we're all in the same business together. So the DEL is the DEL and in Sweden and Finland and Germany, wherever you go, we are all different, but yet we're all the same. And so the collaboration is a multitude of phone calls, different committees together and just working collectively to make sure that we're not something different than somebody else. So we can bring the overall European product. There's going to be little tiny situations or incidents that are a little bit different, but collectively it's the same game if you're going. That's where the Champions League falls into place is. Where does our win2day ICE Hockey League teams rate with all the other teams? And are we competing? Are we there? Is our standard of play good enough? Are we too physical, not physical enough?... And so that collaboration it wouldn't work if we didn't have a full communication of collaboration to make sure that something like the Champions League can be the spectacular product that it is."