A Day in the Life of a Hockey Scout One-on-on with Jamie Hislop, Minnesota Wild Scout
What do teams look for in a scout?
To have a solid hockey background. In my case, I played at the NHL level. I coached in the NHL. I worked in the development end of things. It’s more of hiring a person that they know can assess talent: a player’s strength and weaknesses, how that particular player may fit into your team.
How much does coaching help you look at the game as a scout?
You recognize the system that a team is using. A player might look really bad on a play but he’s doing his job within the system and someone else maybe didn’t cover for him. As a coach, you realize the importance of good team chemistry and how important character is in a player rather than pure ability and pure skills, whether he’s a good team player.
How do you find out those little things? Do you get to know the players one-on-one a little bit?
You don’t really get to know the players one-on-one. You watch a player and part of your job is seeing those players enough. You have to get out and see each team you’re responsible for enough so you can have a pretty good idea what that person does or what type of person that guy is. But that’s also where you have to dig into a player’s background. If you are truly interested in a player, that’s when you start to do a little bit of research: contacting former coaches, contacting former teammates so they can confirm to you what you think you already know.
Does the team tell you who to look for or do you go about your business and spot someone who you think might fit in with the system?
A little bit of both. At the start of the year, you have meetings. You know your own team well enough that you know your strengths and your weaknesses. At the start of the year, you identify the type of player that you’re looking for, whether it’s a defenseman, a third-line winger, a good top line center man. You know your needs. Nowadays, you’re also concerned on how they fit into your payroll. That’s the real difficult part now. For instance, if you’re watching Los Angeles, you’d like to have a good read and a good book on Anze Kopitar, but chances of us ever getting Kopitar are very slim – or for me to go and watch Joe Sakic, even though he might be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year. There are certain players that you’re looking for. You might file a report on ten guys on a particular team on a given night or you might try to file a report on everybody, but you’re really keying on particular players.
Do you file a report every night on them or do you just update weekly? How does that work?
There are so many teams to cover. Whenever, say Los Angeles comes into the area, up in Edmonton last night and Calgary tonight, then you try to file a report on the guys that you’re interested in every night. I’ll see them on TV but maybe I won’t see them live for a while now; it may be six weeks or something like that. You’re trying to file a report on them every time you see them. With Calgary or Edmonton, who I see a lot, I don’t worry so much about filing a report on a regular basis.
You have to watch more than one game, too, because a player can have an off night. That’s why it’s important to see the players on the road, see them at home, see them in back to back games.
It depends on who you’re scouting for, who you’re looking for?
That’s right. Different organizations vary on the types of players they’re looking for, the type of team system that they play. Every organization is different. In general, I think scouts are basically looking for the same thing. Obviously, you want to develop your young drafts, bring them up through the system, and then you’re looking for the guys that kind of complement those players, whether it’s a gritty competitive type guy like Stephane Yelle or whether it’s a little bit more skill involved. Everybody’s kind of looking for the same. I think a lot of teams realize the way the game has evolved, skill, ability to move the puck, pass the puck, good hockey sense, ability to skate — those are all really important now.
Are you looking for a diamond in the rough like a J.S. Giguere a few years ago?
That’s all part of scouting and that’s kind of the difficult thing. Budget is so much of a concern these days, you really have to cover the American League and look for those diamonds in the rough. It may not be a real diamond in the rough, but it might be a guy that will fit into your third or fourth line in a couple of years or even next year, who’s a younger, cheaper player but can do the job.
Depending on whether scouting amateurs or professionals, do you look at it differently?
I think a little bit differently but then the organization has a philosophy. I know for a fact, in Calgary, they really look for players with good character. That philosophy carries through the whole organization. Amateurs, scouts are really seeing these kids at a young age and really trying to project what the player will eventually become. And in pro scouting, you’re looking for specific needs.
What’s a day in the life of a pro scout like? Is there such a thing as a typical day?
There’s such a thing. You spend so much time on the road. Generally, in pro scouting, you’re always traveling from city to city. Unless you’re in a rare situation, like going out to Los Angeles and see four or five games between L.A. and Anaheim and stay in one hotel. Most of the time you’re bouncing from city to city, game to game. You’re generally catching the early flight. It’s really early because you’re trying to get to the airport two hours prior. You fly to the city, you try to get your reports from the night before sometime, whether it’s on the plane and in the air or in your hotel room, and then you go to the game that night, evaluate the players you want to evaluate, spend the night in the hotel and the next day move on. It’s kind of the same routine every day.
Do you have to email a picture to your wife and kids so they know what you look like?
It’s bad that way. It’s a lot of travel. The good thing is in scouting is you do have the time off in the summer. It’s almost like a teacher. You work hard during the ten months so that you get a couple of months off in the summer.
Do you have to put a piece of paper by your phone to remind yourself what city you’re in?
Not so much the city. Always when you’re switching hotel rooms, I have a little cheat sheet for what my room number is. You might be in 310 one night and 715 the next night. I always have to rip off a little piece of paper, put on the hotel room number, put it in my pocket with my key or I would have no idea what room I’m coming to.
Tell me a good story
I was working in development with Calgary and went up to Red Deer. I shouldn’t have. I was raking the lawn that afternoon and they were predicting a big storm. This was in October. It was just raining in Calgary. I was raking the leaves. I went up, watched the game, and we had heard in the building, it was really snowing outside. I left the game about five or six minutes early to see if I could get out of the parking lot before everybody else. I get onto the highway coming back and was doing just fine for a while. And then I just ran into the back end of all these taillights – cars all the way to Calgary. I sat on the road, inching along from about 9:30 at night until we finally got waved off at Carstairs at 4:30 in the morning. We spent the night in a community center gym. It was full of scouts and other people. It was kind of neat the way the community all embraced us. They gave us breakfast in the morning. The roads were still closed in the morning. We spent some time there and then we all tried to brave the roads.
Are the jobs readily available in scouting? Is there a quota?
It’s up to the organization. Gary Bettman is pushing hard to almost get rid of scouting and go to a central scouting system. Buffalo has actually gone that way. I think they may have one full-time guy but they have a whole bunch of interns watching tapes. They do it all by video and tapes. I think you’d miss a lot. We’re not going to find out the results of what Buffalo is doing for the next few years. You can pick off certain things off tape if you know a player already. But for me to go in and watch a tape and scout ten guys I don’t know, I don’t think you’d do a very good job. You’ve got to be at the game to see what the player does away from the puck. TV cameras just don’t show you enough.
