Future GM? Danny Brière’s new role with the Flyers continues his meteoric rise in hockey operations.

Hours before Sean Day made his NHL debut with the Tampa Bay Lightning on Dec. 28, 2021, a text message flashed across the screen of his cellphone.

Congrats on your first NHL game. Really proud of you and how you faced adversity to get there. I am cheering for you all the way.

Danny Brière, then president and governor of the ECHL’s Maine Mariners, was extending his well-wishes to Day, who spent parts of two seasons with the Mariners. When Day arrived in Maine in 2018 after he had been demoted from the AHL’s Hartford Wolfpack, he lacked confidence in his game and “really didn’t care about hockey anymore.”

» READ MORE: Flyers name Danny Briere assistant to the general manager

Brière helped Day when he was at his lowest point, so that text message meant the world to the defenseman.

“He reached out and said how proud he was of me and knew I’d get there someday,” Day said. “So it’s been really cool. That he reached out and said that and didn’t forget about me and had confidence in me to get to that level.”

While leading the Mariners, who are owned by Flyers parent company Comcast Spectacor, Brière helped create an environment where moving up was the goal from top to bottom. From players to equipment managers to coaches, Brière watched members of the organization including Day receive promotions to the AHL and the NHL.

On Feb. 8, Brière got his call-up to the big leagues, and the Flyers, as he was named special assistant to the general manager. Given Brière’s intelligence and work ethic, those close to him aren’t surprised by how quickly he’s climbing the front-office ranks.

“Anybody that knows Danny always thought that he’d be in management, just the way he calculates everything. When you had a conversation with him, he always thinks he’s right. But he is mostly right,” Flyers captain and former teammate Claude Giroux said with a chuckle.

“He’s just a fun guy to be around. One of the most polite persons in hockey that I’ve met. All these things that’s happening for him, it’s definitely for a reason.”

Before Brière became one of the most well-liked Flyers of his era and helped the team to the 2010 Stanley Cup Final, former general manager Paul Holmgren remembers the 5-foot-9 Brière as the Buffalo Sabres’ competitive “little guy.”

“He used to score a lot of goals against us,” Holmgren laughed. “That’s my earliest memory of him.”

So when Brière became a free agent in 2007, Holmgren pushed to bring the 30-year-old to Philadelphia. Although the Flyers finished last in the league the previous season, Brière liked the makeup of the roster led by Jeff Carter and Mike Richards and opted to sign.

Over the course of six seasons with the Flyers, Brière racked up 283 points in 364 games and endeared himself to fans, particularly for his postseason heroics (he led the 2010 playoffs with 30 points). Even after the Flyers bought out Brière’s contract in 2013, he kept his home in the area and trained with Flyers players during the offseason in Voorhees.

“When it was time to retire, after my last year in Colorado, there’s no doubt that we were going to be in Philadelphia,” Brière said. “That’s where the kids have grown up. That’s where they called home. And it had become my second home as well.”

As Brière approached the end of his 17-year playing career, he said he often wondered, “What am I going to do when I’m done?” He aspired to stay in hockey, but he was unsure of which capacity he wanted to work in, from scouting to management to coaching. Holmgren, then the president of the Flyers, offered Brière an opportunity to shadow him and spend time with each department on the business side of the organization, including corporate sales, ticket sales, marketing, and finance.

“You can be a tremendously gifted hockey player and have a tremendous IQ and not understand what’s going on in the game,” Holmgren said. “You know I mean? Like, away from the game. Danny’s different. He was a smart player on the ice, but my relationship with him has afforded me the opportunity to learn how smart he is on the other side as well.”

Brière met president of business operations Valerie Camillo when she joined the organization in 2018. Camillo watched Brière speak at an event with the team’s top sponsors and came away impressed. After the event, Brière and Camillo had a conversation about where he wanted to take his career.

The two discussed the front office trajectory of Los Angeles Kings president and Hockey Hall of Fame player Luc Robitaille, who has mentored both Brière and Camillo. Brière informed Camillo that he wanted to grow his business acumen and Camillo suggested that he enroll in a business program to position himself for his next chapter in hockey. With Camillo’s guidance, Brière completed a two-year general management program at the Penn’s Wharton School of Business in 2021.

“One of the most important parts of my job is finding and supporting the right people to continue the great legacy of the Flyers,” Camillo said. “And as soon as I met Danny, I knew we needed to further invest in him, increase his role, make him an increasingly important member of our business operations team.”

Brière, 42 at the time, went back to school and took classes mostly online during the pandemic, much to the amusement of his three sons, Carson, 22, Caelan, 23, and Cameron, 20.

“My kids thought it was hilarious, ‘cause they’re all in college now, that we were all in college at the same time,” Brière said.

In June 2017, Comcast Spectacor announced the purchase of an ECHL franchise, the Alaska Aces, that they would rename and relocate to Portland, Maine. Holmgren, who was named the team’s governor, and then-Flyers chief operating officer Shawn Tilger tapped Brière as the organization’s vice president of operations to oversee day-to-day happenings on both the hockey and business fronts.

Brière viewed the role as an opportunity to learn on the spot and to see what it takes to build an organization from the ground up.

“Danny really came in with an attitude of wanting to learn,” Mariners vice president of business operations Adam Goldberg said. “Being a top NHL player, I wouldn’t honestly have doubted him if he came in and he said that he knows what to do and he wants to do things his way. But he was very conversational and very inquisitive. He asked a lot of questions. And he didn’t necessarily tell me which direction to take. It was more of a conversation.”

In the beginning, Brière faced a learning curve as he acclimated to his new position and responsibilities. Brière recalled an early staff meeting at the Wells Fargo Center when he felt “completely lost” as participants exchanged unfamiliar sports business terms such as “FSE” (Full Season Equivalents).

“There’s a lot of days where it was overwhelming and I was wondering if I had any clue what I was doing,” Brière said. “But you surround yourself with good people, it goes a long way.”

Last June, shortly after he was promoted to president and governor of the Mariners, Brière helped change the team’s NHL affiliation from the Rangers to the Boston Bruins to boost ticket sales and garner fan engagement in New England. He led lease renegotiations with the City of Portland, successfully stabilizing team finances and avoiding the need to lay off or furlough employees.

In a presentation to Camillo and Comcast Spectacor chairman Dave Scott, Brière laid out a multiyear forecast and supporting business plan with detailed metrics and goals he wanted to achieve in Maine in the coming years.

At the very beginning of his tenure, Brière contributed to the selection of the Mariners’ name (a nod to the former AHL Maine Mariners) and even designed the team’s logo, which contains symbols, colors, and imagery that pay homage to Maine.

“It’s just so thoughtful,” Camillo said. “It’s not just like, you know, here’s a logo. It has nuance and subtlety, and passion. And it’s just a great example of the layers to Danny.”

One of the first moves Brière made on the hockey side was hiring the team’s first head coach, Riley Armstrong. Armstrong, now an assistant coach with the Phantoms, reached out to former Flyers Brayden and Luke Schenn for their impressions of Brière before he interviewed for the job.

“I don’t think there’s a person in the hockey world that has a bad thing to say about him,” Armstrong said.

Brière and Armstrong worked together to recruit players and sign them as Brière managed the salary cap. While Brière handled other Mariners responsibilities from the Philadelphia area, Armstrong estimated the two of them spoke on the phone four times a day.

With each passing year working for Comcast Spectacor, Brière grew more involved with the Flyers. General manager Chuck Fletcher utilized Brière in the player development department, working with both current players and prospects. This year, Brière also spent time behind the bench with the Phantoms assisting head coach Ian Laperrière when COVID-19 hit the coaching staff.

Even while being pulled in multiple directions within the company, Armstrong noticed that Brière never missed a beat.

“That’s the best thing with Danny, he’s so on point all the time with how to handle things,” Armstrong said. “And you always go back to being how smart he is as a hockey player, but also as a manager and a business guy, too, of how he always was able to keep things in a straight line, and never let other things kind of interfere with what he was doing at that day.”

On Nov. 28, 2021, the Canadiens fired former general manager Marc Bergevin. In early January, Brière received a call from Montreal asking if he would be interested in interviewing for the position.

Brière received Fletcher’s full backing throughout the process. He did well enough in his first interview to be invited back for a second.

“That’s when I was a little surprised that things were moving a lot further than I expected,” Brière said. “I guess I had impressed enough to make it to the final three and it was super exciting.”

The Canadiens ended up hiring Kent Hughes as Bergevin’s successor. A month later, Fletcher hired Brière as his assistant, seeking out his contributions in scouting, evaluating, and player development. Leading up to the March 21 trade deadline, Brière will be on the road to scout NHL players. After the deadline, Fletcher envisions Brière assisting with preparations for the draft.

“He’s gonna have a bright future in this game and he has to see what areas he likes,” Fletcher said. “He’s got a tremendous knowledge of the game. He knows players. I think this is a great opportunity for us and for him.”

Despite his interest in business, Brière acknowledges that he’s “through-and-through a hockey guy” and looks forward to his latest adventure in hockey operations. Holmgren, who recognized Brière’s front-office potential from the get-go, believes the sky is the limit for Brière.

“There’s a lot of untapped knowledge that Danny has that maybe he doesn’t even know about that he’s going to find over the course of his career now in management in hockey,” Holmgren said.

For Brière, everything worked out the way it was supposed to.

“When that didn’t work out [ the Montreal interview], what happened next with the Flyers was probably the best possible outcome, having a chance to stay here, to be in the town I was living, to work closely or deeper with the organization that I love,” Brière said. “That I feel is where I should be.”