Do you consider yourself of a specific faith?
I was raised Greek Orthodox, but I’m no longer very active in the formal church. But the Orthodox Church, to its praise and its detriment, doesn’t change — at the root of the very word “orthodox” is the idea that it never changes. There’s a peace and a confidence that if you believe, what you believe doesn’t change.
But I think it’s more my Greek heritage than my Orthodox faith. My father was an immigrant, and my parents loved America. They were very pro-democracy and pro-American Dream, and the church provided for the Greek immigrants who came to Lowell, Mass., where I grew up, a sense of community and a safe harbor to be amongst people who spoke their language and shared their beliefs.
Describe a defining moment in your spiritual life.
Well, I was going down in a plane. And I wasn’t closing my eyes and saying “Boy, that new car I bought, I’m really gonna miss that,” or “All that interior decorating budget that was spent, gee, that’ll really be missed.” But you think about where is your place and what is your role? Mine was to be part of something. I thought, “Hopefully I’ll get through this and I’ll give back more than I gave before.”
How has your spirituality influenced your life as a businessman?
I’ve learned there are some surprising tenets of happiness, and they’re not health or money or sex or power. One of them is finding the higher calling in all pursuits. For me, that means not wanting to make the playoffs or win the Stanley Cup as much as wanting to help to bring the city closer together. And nothing brings a city together like a championship.
Where do professional sports and spirituality meet?
Belief in a collective good is usually what drives people to a championship, and you’ll hear team members say that. You’ll hear words like trust and love and belief, and even magic. You’ll hear a lot of things that have nothing to do with skill or effort.
As our world becomes increasingly networked, what new ethical responsibilities will businesses need to nurture?
We have a single deliverable, which is to make the world better. We see that in the green movement, because the environment is a global issue, or poverty is another. We’ll see more and more global responsibility and viewpoints, as opposed to one country or geography or religious viewpoints. And that’s a higher calling, isn’t it?
At your core, what do you believe?
I believe that we need to leave more than we take, and that it’s better to be a contributor to a collective goodness and whole than it is to be a taker. And I think that’s essentially what is the basic tenet of every religion: Be good.
