from Michael Russo of The Athletic,

You deal with angry calls from general managers, especially when one of your suspension decisions stands in the way of history and perhaps an eventual NHL-record “Ironman” streak. You fend off the NHL’s players’ association, tasked with defending a perpetrator who inflicted harm on another union member. You answer to commissioner Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly, responsible for 1,271 NHL games being played fairly and safely. And you are critiqued daily in print and on the air waves, and on Twitter by thousands of barb-hurling hockey fanatics who customarily view discipline decisions through the lens of their favorite team.

“I’ve isolated myself from the social media world to this point, and I find it best to let the big stories come to me,” first-year department head George Parros, laughing, said last month when The Athletic was granted access to shadow a nine-game night inside the Department of Player Safety’s war room on the 12th floor of NHL headquarters. “You don’t get much positive reinforcement from anybody, so you’re better off avoiding it.”

The good thing is Parros has thick skin — and scarred and callused, for that matter, thanks to years of absorbing and throwing punches.

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