DENVER — John Chayka came striding through a Pepsi Center walkway Tuesday morning, on his way up the stands to watch the Colorado Avalanche's morning skate. Wearing a sharply tailored gray suit, the tall, slender Arizona Coyotes general manager wore white Apple earbuds as he talked into an iPhone while carrying a sleek Apple Macbook Air.
Other than an absent venti Starbucks latte, Chayka looked like any other on-the-go, techy millennial. While he is just that, Chayka somehow crashed one of the biggest old-boy networks in sports, that of NHL GM. Last summer, the Coyotes made the then-26-year-old Chayka the youngest GM in league history, entering a fraternity whose average age at the time of his hire was 53.
Chayka, a native of Jordan Station, Ontario, knows there are a lot of old-school cynics skeptical he can find success with his analytics-based philosophies of what makes a good hockey player, but he didn't seem fazed by them or much else a month into his new job.
"I think stress is fun," Chayka said. "Maybe I'm a stress junkie, but if I didn't have stress in my life and my job, I'd be looking for something to creat ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Adrian Dater
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