For anyone who didn’t grow up playing high-end club hockey in the U.S., let me tell you that unless you skated there or had some friends that did, Shattuck St. Mary’s was enemy numero uno. I mean, they’re basically like Top Gun of USA amateur hockey. Just look at some of their former players – Sidney Crosby, Zach Parise, Jonathan Toews, Drew Stafford…I could go on but I think you get the point. These aren’t just future NHLers we are talking about – these are “the best of the best.” From top to bottom, it’s tough if not impossible to find a North American club that can claim a degree of consistency that comes even close to that of Shattuck. When you would play them, you couldn’t keep up and we despised them for it. Now I realize that most of this SSM hate is just pure jealousy – if Shattuck’s coaching staff had been knocking on my door when I was 14, I’m guessing I’d have developed a much different opinion of the school. But since that wasn’t the case for me (and almost every other player out there), Shattuck was always just a bunch of “cake-eaters.” It’s funny, though, how quickly one can pull a mental 180.
This past weekend I was fortunate enough to have three top-ten U.S. teams in the Midget Minor division here in Chicago for a series of games. Shattuck (#6) was in town and they be played Team Illinois (#8) twice and the Chicago Mission (#1) once. Despite my long-standing hatred (envy) of SSM, I knew these were some games that I had to be at.
The first match on Saturday afternoon between Shattuck and TI was a trouncing – St. Mary’s took the contest easily by a score of 5-1. While they didn’t play with as much flash as I had expected (this was my first time seeing the U16’s this year), Shattuck was easily the most disciplined team I’d seen thus far this season at any level. Each player on the ice understood his assignments, played sound defensively, and knew when to jump into a play. You could definitely tell that this was a smart group of players that was coached very well. The most interesting part of my afternoon, though, had nothing to do with the game itself.
When I first arrived at the rink Saturday, I found a nice table on a concourse area above the bleachers. I usually like to take notes when I scout, so this worked out perfectly. During the second period, a man and woman walked over and sat down in the last row of the stands in front of my table. As the game went on, the gentleman leaned back a couple times to ask my opinion on some calls the officials had made. Not knowing who he was – but assuming he was a SSM parent – I decided to engage him in a conversation after the period as he was heading to the lobby for intermission. We talked hockey for a bit and a few moments into our discussion, I decided to introduce myself. That’s when I found out who he was – part-owner and CEO of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Oren Koules. To be honest, I never would have pegged him as NHL ownership. He’s a young, outgoing, down-to-earth guy – nothing like the stereotypical NHL owners of old. For those of you not familiar with him, I encourage you to check his bio out on the Lightning website – he’s got a pretty impressive resume. Needless to say, getting to speak with him for a few minutes was great, but for the record, I didn’t ask him about the impending sale of the Lightning or Vinny the Great’s future with the club.
Later that night, SSM would be facing off against the #1 U.S. ranked Chicago Mission, and naturally, I planned to be in attendance. I got to the rink during warm-ups and was able to find a nice secluded spot in an upstairs viewing area. To my surprise, the only other people up there were three young girls running around. Now as I know I’ve said before, when I’m scouting at large tournaments like I have been this year, everyone in the rink knows exactly what I’m there for. When I scout at just a random game, though, I’m usually the only agent in the building, so I tend to stand out even more so. Apparently, even little 8 year-old girls can pick an agent out of a room – about halfway through the 2nd period with the score tied 2-2, I started to get a little scouting assistance from one of the girls upstairs. “Oh man…that number 18 for the Mission is soooooo good! He should definitely get scouted!” With it being impossible not to laugh, I just tried to hold it in as best I could – definitely one of my funnier scouting moments.
In the end, Mission was able to overtake the fatigued Shattuck boys and defeated them by a score of 4-2. Although SSM lost the game, I was happy to see that a few of the stronger players were starting to show me what I was hoping they would display. By the end of the game, I had listed three or four kids in particular that I wanted to keep a close eye on the next day.
After the game, I stuck around for a little while to talk with the Shattuck coaches. While waiting around, I ran into Oren in the lobby and it turns out he actually coached one of my best friends in juniors back in the day. You know how people say that everyone on earth is connected with each other by six degrees of separation or less? Well with the hockey circle it’s usually something like three degrees or less. Eventually I was able to speak with the Shattuck coach as well, and he also turned out to be a really good guy. That was when I really felt myself begin to turn into a…gasp….Shattuck supporter!
Sunday morning started out with an early service of church and then heading an hour north of my home to catch the last SSM game of the weekend. They’d be playing TI again and I was hoping for a little more competitive match than the first one. While I didn’t get what I wanted in that respect (Shattuck won 4-1), I was provided with some impressive plays made by a few of the players I had taken note of the day before. I could tell that a couple of these kids had some real potential and I made sure to let their coach know that he should expect to see me around come Nationals. With Shattuck teams (especially at the Minor Midget level and above), most of the real talent already have agents working for them, but there’s never any harm in trying…and that’s what I intend to do.
This week I’ve got my meeting with that attorney to discuss doing some Immigration work for them, so I’ll be spending most of my day today preparing for that as well as typing up some of my scouting reports from the weekend. In addition, a good friend of my family who plays junior hockey in the States is suddenly without a team so I’ll be making some calls around today looking to find him a spot on a roster somewhere.
Next weekend I should be back to scouting some of the 95 players – the Cleveland Barons will be in town to play the Chicago Young Americans and Cleveland has two kids that I’ve been eyeing for a while. I’ve got my trip out to Dayton and Toledo all set up for Feb. 11-14, so I’ve got to have another productive weekend with the amateur players before that. As always, I’ll be sure to keep my Twitter and Facebook accounts current with any updates. Well, until next week…it’s time to hit the showers.