Well just as one client leaves town, another comes back. This past weekend, Matt returned to Chicago after finishing up his season with the Gems as they failed to qualify for the playoffs. Despite his team’s falling short of their goals, I’d say this season for Matt was nothing short of a success. He was able to get some valuable pro experience, and as a rookie, he was awarded the team’s Most Improved and Best Defensive Player. He also got some great positive feedback from his coach during his end-of-the-year meeting and I’ll be following up that with a phone conference with his coach later this week. With all this under his belt, Matt was able to put himself in a position to take the step to the next level and it’s my job to make sure he gets his chance to go there.
As far as Andrey goes, this past week my company sent out his media kits to all the NHL clubs and a few OHL teams that I’ve spoken with about him. If you’d like to see what the kit actually looks like, I posted pictures of it on the Rookie Duties Facebook Page. In addition, we got some news from Russia. Kuch already started skating with Chekhov Vityaz – the club he skated with the previous two seasons. Apparently they were impressed with his improvement enough to offer him a three-year KHL agreement. Fortunately, Kuch’s gone down this path before and he knows better than to just chase after money that’s being put in front of him. He understands that he still needs to further develop his game, and since he wants to skate in the NHL down the road, he knows that getting buried on a KHL depth chart is not the best way to get there. I haven’t gotten any of the details of the offer itself yet, but Kuch and I have a Skype conference planned for later today, so I’m sure I’ll have more information soon. All I know is that he told Vityaz that they should call me, so I’m ready to receive a call at any time.
Last week I mentioned that it seemed as though I’d be getting two new clients on Team ISA Hockey. One of the two kids was a former teammate of Matt when he was playing college hockey at University of Wisconsin – River Falls. Just this year he finished up his final year of college eligibility and a coach of one IHL team is very interested in signing him to an agreement. In fact, the coach liked him so much that he was ready to sign and place him on their playoff roster. Unfortunately, the team came a bit short down the stretch and weren’t able to qualify for the postseason. While that might put a delay on getting a deal done in the short-term, there is plenty to be excited about come this Fall.
My other new potential client is an import (foreign) player who skated in the US Junior system this past season. He’s exhausted his Junior eligibility after this past season and now he wants to evaluate his professional options before looking into playing in college. Under the NCAA Constitution and Bylaws (2009), players may maintain college eligibility after trying out with a professional club so long as certain time and reimbursement restrictions are followed. NCAA Constitution and Bylaws, Article 12.2.1.1 (2009). In addition, my relationship with him doesn’t jeopardize his eligibility because I’m not acting as his agent in distributing his statistics and information to coaches. See NCAA Constitution and Bylaws at Article 12.3.3.1. His host father from last year should be sending me some game film of him this week, so I’ll be able to take a look and see where he might be a good fit.
This week in my office will mostly be spent trying to get Andrey’s situation for next season figured out. There most likely won’t be any resolution until July once the NHL and CHL drafts have concluded, but there’s a lot of work to be done and I need to be 100% prepared when NHL clubs start calling looking for some answers. In addition, this weekend I’ll be heading down to Indiana University to visit my little sister, Meghan. Matt’s planning on driving down there with me so it’ll be a nice little agent/client bonding opportunity (as if skating together for 10+ years wasn’t enough). But as I mentioned in last week’s entry, hockey players are an extremely tight crew, and like I know I’ve said before, while I might be an agent now, I’ll always be a hockey player.
As always I’ll be sure to keep the Rookie Duties Facebook Fan Page up-to-date with any developments. I hope you all have a great week ahead of you and until next week…it’s time to hit the showers.