Anyone with Amateur Scouting Experience?

[Fraser]

Wondering if there's anyone who has done any kind of semi-official scouting or has experience in the matter? Recently starting to ramp up my ambitions to pursue a career in hockey, and while scouting wouldn't be an end goal of mine, its one potential window into the industry I'm beginning to explore. Anyways looking to get info wherever I can right now, figured someone may have some of a background in this.

[lightupdadarkness]

I figure it's like anything else just sleep your way to the top

[Mike]

afaik Anton's the only one with any experience working for a hockey club, though not in scouting. you might want to ask him.

[Arian The Insider]

All I know is to get a scouting job for an NHL you need to have connections. All those guys played some decent level of hockey and know people. Not sure about CHL.

[Robin Hood]

Hey Fraser - my advice would be that if you want to go into something other than scouting, don't start in scouting. Avoid the "foot in the door" mentality. Instead, build a unique case/story around why you'd be valuable to a hockey team in the role you actually want. E.g. if you want to get into management, find an avenue into management. Doing so will help you rise top instead of battling with 2 million other people who want similar jobs.

A little about how I know this world - I'm a digital marketing specialist and am the head of marketing & sales at a cloud software company. Given my experience, I've often thought about transitioning to hockey using my marketing expertise and then eventually a more hockey-focused role.

I highly recommend you do the same through an avenue that you're passionate about. You'll get there faster and the road will be more pleasant .

If you ever want to chat about this stuff, feel free to shoot me a PM .

[kimmer]

Steve

[thom54]

Hey Fraser - my advice would be that if you want to go into something other than scouting, don't start in scouting. Avoid the "foot in the door" mentality. Instead, build a unique case/story around why you'd be valuable to a hockey team in the role you actually want. E.g. if you want to get into management, find an avenue into management. Doing so will help you rise top instead of battling with 2 million other people who want similar jobs.

A little about how I know this world - I'm a digital marketing specialist and am the head of marketing & sales at a cloud software company. Given my experience, I've often thought about transitioning to hockey using my marketing expertise and then eventually a more hockey-focused role.

I highly recommend you do the same through an avenue that you're passionate about. You'll get there faster and the road will be more pleasant .

If you ever want to chat about this stuff, feel free to shoot me a PM .

Bingo. Eventually teams will be going to people with identifiable and quantifiable skills, not just hockey connections. Look at baseball as an example!

[Fraser]

Hey Fraser - my advice would be that if you want to go into something other than scouting, don't start in scouting. Avoid the "foot in the door" mentality. Instead, build a unique case/story around why you'd be valuable to a hockey team in the role you actually want. E.g. if you want to get into management, find an avenue into management. Doing so will help you rise top instead of battling with 2 million other people who want similar jobs.

A little about how I know this world - I'm a digital marketing specialist and am the head of marketing & sales at a cloud software company. Given my experience, I've often thought about transitioning to hockey using my marketing expertise and then eventually a more hockey-focused role.

I highly recommend you do the same through an avenue that you're passionate about. You'll get there faster and the road will be more pleasant .

If you ever want to chat about this stuff, feel free to shoot me a PM .

That is precisely what I'm intending to do, but in a bit of more roundabout way due to my current lack of tangible education and skills to provide to a specific aspect of the industry. I am fairly set of this brand new hockey specific executive MBA given in conjunction by Athabasca University and the Business of Hockey Institute, if I do in fact go down this route. The catch is they are predominantly looking for people who are already in the industry, or possess some degree of hockey related work experience, before admitting you into the program. And being brand new with very limited admittance, they are continuously stressing how competitive this program is going to be to get into.

Here's a brief overview of the program.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKbm9VFTduA[/youtube]

So basically what I'm thinking at this point, being an undergraduate who will be holding a bachelor of science, with little direct education to feed into this, I'm going to aim to build a strong hockey centred profile, one that may involve volunteer or simply personal amateur scouting. Essentially I think if I'm going to make the connections needed to get into a management type role, even as a very low level of hockey, I'm going to have to become a near non-stop presence within a community. So at this point I'm thinking of moving back to my hometown, not the biggest city in Nanaimo BC, and start doing everything I can to become the face of volunteering around community hockey, and at this point I don;t think it would hurt to develop a larger knowledge around what goes into scouting, and even giving a go at it myself. Ordered a couple books on the matter in the past couple days, so I will give it a go.

Also I would absolutely kill to get an opportunity like Anton, even at a much lower level, so yes I should reach out to him. But I know our situations will be quite different as he landed his opportunity while within his MBA education, and I would be looking to get experience to be eligible for my education.

[Robin Hood]

Hey Fraser - my advice would be that if you want to go into something other than scouting, don't start in scouting. Avoid the "foot in the door" mentality. Instead, build a unique case/story around why you'd be valuable to a hockey team in the role you actually want. E.g. if you want to get into management, find an avenue into management. Doing so will help you rise top instead of battling with 2 million other people who want similar jobs.

A little about how I know this world - I'm a digital marketing specialist and am the head of marketing & sales at a cloud software company. Given my experience, I've often thought about transitioning to hockey using my marketing expertise and then eventually a more hockey-focused role.

I highly recommend you do the same through an avenue that you're passionate about. You'll get there faster and the road will be more pleasant .

If you ever want to chat about this stuff, feel free to shoot me a PM .

That is precisely what I'm intending to do, but in a bit of more roundabout way due to my current lack of tangible education and skills to provide to a specific aspect of the industry. I am fairly set of this brand new hockey specific executive MBA given in conjunction by Athabasca University and the Business of Hockey Institute, if I do in fact go down this route. The catch is they are predominantly looking for people who are already in the industry, or possess some degree of hockey related work experience, before admitting you into the program. And being brand new with very limited admittance, they are continuously stressing how competitive this program is going to be to get into.

Here's a brief overview of the program.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKbm9VFTduA[/youtube]

So basically what I'm thinking at this point, being an undergraduate who will be holding a bachelor of science, with little direct education to feed into this, I'm going to aim to build a strong hockey centred profile, one that may involve volunteer or simply personal amateur scouting. Essentially I think if I'm going to make the connections needed to get into a management type role, even as a very low level of hockey, I'm going to have to become a near non-stop presence within a community. So at this point I'm thinking of moving back to my hometown, not the biggest city in Nanaimo BC, and start doing everything I can to become the face of volunteering around community hockey, and at this point I don;t think it would hurt to develop a larger knowledge around what goes into scouting, and even giving a go at it myself. Ordered a couple books on the matter in the past couple days, so I will give it a go.

Also I would absolutely kill to get an opportunity like Anton, even at a much lower level, so yes I should reach out to him. But I know our situations will be quite different as he landed his opportunity while within his MBA education, and I would be looking to get experience to be eligible for my education.

Hey - that sounds like a good plan. I was suggesting an alternative plan. My reasons are below for your consideration:

1) With your plan, a lot of bounces need to "break" your way. A) You need to find hockey related experience B) You need to apply and have them consider it significant enough to let you in and C) Once you get in you need to do well enough to land a placement once you graduate. It's a good plan and it can work in your favour if you work hard.

Pros: Safer, more of a concrete path
Cons: Will take a long time to get to the position you really want, there is always a chance a bounce doesn't go your way

2) I'm suggesting you build what's called in marketing a USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Obviously there are people in hockey who never played or coached but hold positions even though they didn't attend that program.

A) Question is how did they get there? Some recent examples include popular advanced stat bloggers who have actually been hired by teams. Why? Because they found a skill that was unmatched.
B) Can you do the same without "getting permission" from a program? I guarantee you can find a way once you narrow down what you actually love doing/want to do in hockey. Focus on that relentlessly. Read books like crazy on the subject, go to conferences, network, run side businesses...all of that will pad your stats/resume and "engineer" the outcome you want.
C) Even if you don't go with B (I realize it's not or everyone but that's how I've decided to build my career), that Hockey MBA program is not the only MBA program that can get you into hockey. E.g. get a 720+ on the GMAT, go to a top 10 business school and I am sure you can get into an amazing operations/management role in hockey.

In summary, there's more than one way to skin a cat. I think you can make a lot more money and live a better quality of life if you truly map this out vs. going the traditional route that people have planned out with this program. Not to mention get there sooner.

I truly believe in today's age, experience and skill trumps degrees any day. And it's easier today than ever to get a job just on skill because companies even realize that. You have prodigy programmers who are dropouts receiving 6 figure offers from companies because they have a skill that is infinitely valuable.

/rant...hope it helps

[Bruyns]

The cost for that hockey program is also $80,000 which is about 4X more than the average MBA. I remember looking into this when it was first announced since I already have a degree in management economics and have considered an MBA in the past. When researching there seemed to be concerns that the cost was too high for an online only course that is very specialized with no guarantees of a high paying job.

[Fraser]

Hey Fraser - my advice would be that if you want to go into something other than scouting, don't start in scouting. Avoid the "foot in the door" mentality. Instead, build a unique case/story around why you'd be valuable to a hockey team in the role you actually want. E.g. if you want to get into management, find an avenue into management. Doing so will help you rise top instead of battling with 2 million other people who want similar jobs.

A little about how I know this world - I'm a digital marketing specialist and am the head of marketing & sales at a cloud software company. Given my experience, I've often thought about transitioning to hockey using my marketing expertise and then eventually a more hockey-focused role.

I highly recommend you do the same through an avenue that you're passionate about. You'll get there faster and the road will be more pleasant .

If you ever want to chat about this stuff, feel free to shoot me a PM .

That is precisely what I'm intending to do, but in a bit of more roundabout way due to my current lack of tangible education and skills to provide to a specific aspect of the industry. I am fairly set of this brand new hockey specific executive MBA given in conjunction by Athabasca University and the Business of Hockey Institute, if I do in fact go down this route. The catch is they are predominantly looking for people who are already in the industry, or possess some degree of hockey related work experience, before admitting you into the program. And being brand new with very limited admittance, they are continuously stressing how competitive this program is going to be to get into.

Here's a brief overview of the program.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKbm9VFTduA[/youtube]

So basically what I'm thinking at this point, being an undergraduate who will be holding a bachelor of science, with little direct education to feed into this, I'm going to aim to build a strong hockey centred profile, one that may involve volunteer or simply personal amateur scouting. Essentially I think if I'm going to make the connections needed to get into a management type role, even as a very low level of hockey, I'm going to have to become a near non-stop presence within a community. So at this point I'm thinking of moving back to my hometown, not the biggest city in Nanaimo BC, and start doing everything I can to become the face of volunteering around community hockey, and at this point I don;t think it would hurt to develop a larger knowledge around what goes into scouting, and even giving a go at it myself. Ordered a couple books on the matter in the past couple days, so I will give it a go.

Also I would absolutely kill to get an opportunity like Anton, even at a much lower level, so yes I should reach out to him. But I know our situations will be quite different as he landed his opportunity while within his MBA education, and I would be looking to get experience to be eligible for my education.

Hey - that sounds like a good plan. I was suggesting an alternative plan. My reasons are below for your consideration:

1) With your plan, a lot of bounces need to "break" your way. A) You need to find hockey related experience B) You need to apply and have them consider it significant enough to let you in and C) Once you get in you need to do well enough to land a placement once you graduate. It's a good plan and it can work in your favour if you work hard.

Pros: Safer, more of a concrete path
Cons: Will take a long time to get to the position you really want, there is always a chance a bounce doesn't go your way

2) I'm suggesting you build what's called in marketing a USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Obviously there are people in hockey who never played or coached but hold positions even though they didn't attend that program.

A) Question is how did they get there? Some recent examples include popular advanced stat bloggers who have actually been hired by teams. Why? Because they found a skill that was unmatched.
B) Can you do the same without "getting permission" from a program? I guarantee you can find a way once you narrow down what you actually love doing/want to do in hockey. Focus on that relentlessly. Read books like crazy on the subject, go to conferences, network, run side businesses...all of that will pad your stats/resume and "engineer" the outcome you want.
C) Even if you don't go with B (I realize it's not or everyone but that's how I've decided to build my career), that Hockey MBA program is not the only MBA program that can get you into hockey. E.g. get a 720+ on the GMAT, go to a top 10 business school and I am sure you can get into an amazing operations/management role in hockey.

In summary, there's more than one way to skin a cat. I think you can make a lot more money and live a better quality of life if you truly map this out vs. going the traditional route that people have planned out with this program. Not to mention get there sooner.

I truly believe in today's age, experience and skill trumps degrees any day. And it's easier today than ever to get a job just on skill because companies even realize that. You have prodigy programmers who are dropouts receiving 6 figure offers from companies because they have a skill that is infinitely valuable.

/rant...hope it helps

Immensely. This is a very new serious ambition of mine, and I have a lot to take into consideration. I have a lot of research ahead, but I also currently have an insane amount of free time. Got some work ahead of me here.

[Robin Hood]

The cost for that hockey program is also $80,000 which is about 4X more than the average MBA. I remember looking into this when it was first announced since I already have a degree in management economics and have considered an MBA in the past. When researching there seemed to be concerns that the cost was too high for an online only course that is very specialized with no guarantees of a high paying job.

Ya - to this point, I don't like the idea of working on a career that has a market of 30 buyers because that's a losing proposition in the long run. Build a career on activities that have thousands of suitors who will pay you top dollar to do what you do because it is scarce and valuable. Especially when factors like family, kids, mortgages etc. come up in the future, having a solid career that can transition across industries, cities, countries is incredibly valuable.

[Fraser]

The cost for that hockey program is also $80,000 which is about 4X more than the average MBA. I remember looking into this when it was first announced since I already have a degree in management economics and have considered an MBA in the past. When researching there seemed to be concerns that the cost was too high for an online only course that is very specialized with no guarantees of a high paying job.

You are absolutely right. I try my absolute best to avoid making money based decisions when it comes to education, but it is insanely expensive. I suppose I wouldn't be looking to potentially join for at least a couple more years, so it may be interesting to see if they provide any sort of career trajectory statistics for the first graduates who come out of the program.

[anton]

what is your playing experience? lower level scouting jobs in some of the more obscure junior leagues in NA are pretty easy to come by if you've got fairly decent playing experience and still maintain connections in your hockey community.

if you don't have that, it becomes infinitely more difficult. every job is about networks and connections but scouting is even more so. to be perfectly honest, no MBA or Sport Management degree is going to get you a scouting job if you lack high level playing experience or a very strong hockey network. i would absolutely NOT spend money on this kind of education if scouting was your only goal.

i think the best avenue would be coaching. do you have any experience with that? coaching local youth travel teams is a great way to grow your network and meet people in the hockey community. I'm a nobody who played AA growing up and a bit of Jr. C and I frequently coach against Scott Niedermayer, Rob Blake, Patrik Stefan, etc. It's surreal going through the handshake line after the game with them, but it goes to show the connections that can be made.

You talked about volunteering - start out volunteer coaching. Maybe you work your way up to assistant and then you get your own team. There's no better way to build your name in a hockey community than being a recognizable coach. The higher level coaches in your club (AAA) will surely have connections with Jr teams and scouts if their worth anything.

[Fraser]

what is your playing experience? lower level scouting jobs in some of the more obscure junior leagues in NA are pretty easy to come by if you've got fairly decent playing experience and still maintain connections in your hockey community.

if you don't have that, it becomes infinitely more difficult. every job is about networks and connections but scouting is even more so. to be perfectly honest, no MBA or Sport Management degree is going to get you a scouting job if you lack high level playing experience or a very strong hockey network. i would absolutely NOT spend money on this kind of education if scouting was your only goal.

i think the best avenue would be coaching. do you have any experience with that? coaching local youth travel teams is a great way to grow your network and meet people in the hockey community. I'm a nobody who played AA growing up and a bit of Jr. C and I frequently coach against Scott Niedermayer, Rob Blake, Patrik Stefan, etc. It's surreal going through the handshake line after the game with them, but it goes to show the connections that can be made.

You talked about volunteering - start out volunteer coaching. Maybe you work your way up to assistant and then you get your own team. There's no better way to build your name in a hockey community than being a recognizable coach. The higher level coaches in your club (AAA) will surely have connections with Jr teams and scouts if their worth anything.

Thanks for the input Anton. Yes in terms of playing I am a hockey nobody, house hockey and no further, so that isn't going to be my way into the game. That being said I do have over 5 years experience coaching my main sport growing up, that being competitive swimming. So I am not completely foreign to the coaching role.

Scouting is not an end goal of mine. I would want to be a part of a management team, at this point just the idea of being involved in any capacity excites me. But I suppose this is something I really need to explore and define the role I'm ultimately seeking, if i am going to set out how I am going to accomplish reaching that goal. I am interested in at least learning what really goes into scouting from a technical standpoint, and I wouldn't rule out the possibility of falling in love with it and pursuing it for at least a short amount of time. But ultimately as a long term career, the lifestyle isn't one that I foresee myself agreeing with. Either way I don't think having an increased knowledge of multiple aspects of the game, will ever hurt my chances of acquiring potential management positions, so I do intend of increasing my knowledge in this area of the game in at least a limited capacity.

I was already planning to get back on the ice for the first time in nearly 10 years when I return to Canada this upcoming September, so if I could get back in the mindset of technical development of the game. I definitely wouldn't rule out taking on a minor coaching role after that point. And it was something I was already considering, as a part of this profile I was aiming to create, but for me it will take some incredible baby steps for me to feel comfortable in the role, as my knowledge base just isn't there at this point. I understand coming from such a shallow hockey background stacks the odds against me big time, but at the same time when I get motivated around accomplishing something, I wouldn't bet against me getting what I want.

I really appreciate the input guys. Got a lot to start considering, but I'm really starting to think that this is the path I want to jump into.

[anton]

coaching is something you can do regardless of playing experience really. obviously you need to have fundamental hockey skills but you in no way need to be a superstar.

the key is surrounding yourself with the game. im super lucky that my job has me surrounded by hockey every single day. most days all i do is watch practice after practice at all different levels. i just happen to get paid for it. in one night i may watch a Pee Wee B practice, followed by a 16AAA, followed by a college team, and then the Ontario Reign. i sit there with a pen and paper and steal drills all night long. the next night ill use them at my practice with my kids.

so if you do decide to go the coaching route, be prepared to just hang out at the rink all the time. watch how the higher levels coaches run their practices - bring a note pad and draw out the drills. you'd be surprised at how comfortable you get very soon.

[Fraser]

coaching is something you can do regardless of playing experience really. obviously you need to have fundamental hockey skills but you in no way need to be a superstar.

the key is surrounding yourself with the game. im super lucky that my job has me surrounded by hockey every single day. most days all i do is watch practice after practice at all different levels. i just happen to get paid for it. in one night i may watch a Pee Wee B practice, followed by a 16AAA, followed by a college team, and then the Ontario Reign. i sit there with a pen and paper and steal drills all night long. the next night ill use them at my practice with my kids.

so if you do decide to go the coaching route, be prepared to just hang out at the rink all the time. watch how the higher levels coaches run their practices - bring a note pad and draw out the drills. you'd be surprised at how comfortable you get very soon.

Thanks for all the input, really sounds great. Yea I definitely think I'm going to try and build towards the coaching route, really seems like the way to go. I'll pick up a book on it in the months here before i head back home, and may even take a course or two on the matter when I get back so I can go into it with a bit more confidence than I would have right now.

But down the line if your ever looking for a keen young go getter to help out around the rink, you know where to find one!

[bills09]

Tl;dr

[Fraser]

Tl;dr

Essentially all you need to know is that I'm going to become a coach. Because Anton told me to.