You might not know the names of all 31 General Managers, but even if you don’t, many are familiar. When you look at the list of them, you’ll note that a lot of these men played hockey. There seem to be three main routes to the executive suites in NHL teams: come off an NHL bench, have four years of NCAA hockey and presumably a degree in some useful field or be a lawyer that ended up working for a team at some time.
A lot of these men have been in charge of AHL teams or junior teams before they got the top job.