For Nora Corthren, the work goes far beyond organizing events or telling stories. It’s about helping people see themselves in hockey.

As the NHL’s Manager of Content, Audience Development, and Social Impact, Corthren works at the crossroads of storytelling and community engagement, helping shine a spotlight on initiatives that make our game of hockey more welcoming and inclusive. From Pride programming to the Willie O’Ree Community Hero Award and Hockey Fights Cancer, her role focuses on highlighting the people and organizations making a difference throughout the hockey world.

Over the past four years, Corthren has witnessed meaningful growth across the sport.

“It really has been wonderful to just see the hockey world continue to grow and develop and become more welcoming and more diverse and more inclusive,” she said.

Much of that progress comes from grassroots organizations working to create safe and welcoming spaces for players and fans from all backgrounds. Corthren’s job often involves identifying those stories and using the NHL’s platform to amplify them.

“I think it’s something that a lot of people who do the grassroots work of trying to make the game a more inclusive and welcoming space, they don’t do it for the attention,” she said. “They very much do it for the impact.”

That ability to elevate organizations and individuals making a difference has become one of the most rewarding parts of her work.

Among the initiatives closest to Corthren’s heart is the NHL’s continued involvement in Pride celebrations, including the annual New York City Pride March. For years, the league has marched alongside local hockey organizations and teams from across the New York metropolitan area, including the New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders, New York Sirens, and New York Rangers.

For Corthren, the importance of that presence cannot be overstated. Seeing the NHL shield, the NHL teams’ logos, and even, yes, NJ Devil, are important parts of representation to a marginalized community.

A notorious mob hitman who once testified against John “Junior” Gotti before cleaning up his life and becoming a councilman in New Jersey has been arrested on extortion and loansharking charges that, if proven, reflect a return to the lifestyle of his youth.

John Alite, 63, was arrested on Friday in New Jersey, where he was sworn in early last year as a councilman in the borough of Englishtown. Released after a court appearance Saturday, Alite is scheduled to return to court for a detention hearing Wednesday.

His attorney, Douglas Anton, responding to an email seeking comment, said he did not want to speak about the case before the next court appearance.

Alite faces multiple counts of extortion, corporate misconduct, loansharking and terroristic threats.

Alite provided loans at exorbitant rates before threatening violence to collect on them, authorities said, citing the discovery in his home of metal knuckles, an expandable baton, six baseball bats and about two dozen knives, including switchblades.

The baseball bats, authorities said, included one stored near his home’s front door and five more in a kitchen storage bench.

An officer of the New Jersey State Police, an investigative arm of the attorney general’s office, said in court papers that it appeared that the weapons found in Alite’s residence were intended for use in collecting debts.

According to court papers, Alite had threatened one person he had lent money to, saying he would strike him across the head with a baseball bat if he didn’t meet his demands.

Alite also had bragged that he had in the past endeavored to “gut” people like “fish,” the court papers said.

In a release, prosecutors said Alite carried out crimes in part through his corporation, Straightened-Out Entertainment Inc.

They said he illegally obtained property and money from his victims by threats of violence in ways that reflected his 2009 testimony at a Gotti trial that ended with a deadlocked jury.

Alite told a Manhattan federal court jury that he killed a childhood friend to earn respect from fellow mobsters.