One thing I love about this business is the fact that no day is like the one before, and you can’t ever predict what’s going to get thrown your way. Just last week, I got an email from a friend letting me know that a USHL All-Star with 2010 NHL Draft potential was interested in signing with my firm. It’s kind of a long story that I can’t get into without revealing the identity of the player, but basically it seems as though his current agent hasn’t really been doing much for his career and he’s looking for a change. At this point, I’m not really sure how serious he is about switching to our agency, but he’s living with some close friends of mine who have been telling him about my work ethic and character and have told me that he’s definitely interested. I really feel as though I’m in a position to help this kid get where he wants to be, and at the same time getting him on our client roster would be a gigantic step forward in a very short period of time.
After I got word of his interest, I naturally made plans to be at his next game, which was this past Saturday. During the game, I sat with his host family and girlfriend, and we began to discuss my opinion on how he would best continue his development through the amateur hockey system. Overall, I feel as though I was on the same page with the direction this kid wanted to go, and after the game, we made plans to talk more business tonight. If all goes well, most of my time this week will be making calls to Major Junior and NHL clubs.
Besides my lead with the junior player, I’ve also been continuing my work with the 1995 players. Unfortunately, my entry last week was a little inaccurate in my schedule for this past weekend – it actually was the 1996 Cleveland Barons team that was coming to town, not the ‘95s that I had scouted in the past. Nevertheless, while there weren’t any really good games in town, I spent some time over the weekend making some calls about a big amateur prospect tournament that’s being held in Toronto this spring called the Prospects Hockey Tournament (creative right?). An associate of mine is putting together a team to compete in the annual event and he wondered if any kids I was advising would be interested. I made some calls to some of the parents I’d met over this past season to see if there was any interest and I’m still waiting to hear back from most of them. This event is heavily scouted by USHL and NCAA DI clubs and accepts only the top players at each age level. We will see if any of my kids decide to participate, but I’m strongly encouraging them to – it’s definitely a great opportunity to get their names out there. If you’d like more information on the tournament itself, its website can be found at http://www.prospectstourney.com.
As far as my meeting with that attorney, things went extremely well. We didn’t talk too much business, but I could definitely tell that he liked my drive and determination. His firm is going to start referring their immigration case work to me directly, which should bring a huge increase in business. While juggling all this work and watching a tight personal budget has caused a lot of anxiety, lately things seem to just be falling into place for me very nicely as if someone’s telling me that this is what I’m supposed to be doing with my life. I feel as though I’m laying all the things necessary for a solid professional foundation and I’m really looking forward to the days when start to see the real returns on my investment.
Well it’s time for me to get back to work preparing for my meeting tonight – there’s still a lot of work ahead of me. I apologize for such a brief entry this week, but hopefully I’ll have some good stuff for you next Monday regarding my meeting. I hope you all had a great weekend and that you have a productive week ahead of you. With that…it’s time to hit the showers.