Just curious Paul, but have you ever been asked your opinion on a player or players from GM's or scouts .
I would think that a ref who sees players in the heat of battle quite often would have a good handle on whether they are worthy of a draft selection. Especially someone like yourself who played in the NHL and being a ref in Europe you would think you could help a team identify good talent.
Could a ref also be employed as a scout for an NHL team?
- sparky
I was told once by a team owner, "But you were only a referee, Do you really think that you would be able to find us players?" YES.
It's not that difficult especially considering I go to 300 + games a year. I go to watch games, monitor officials, scout for new people to ref our high level contests. I see great players, some not so great. Great trainers and equipment managers...great coaches and some not so great...good rinks, good ice, good concessions, good atmosphere. I see it all and it isn't work for me.
It's my life....my passion....The best way to scout is to not let other know that that is what you are doing.
For 28 years as a Pro player and referee, having been three feet from the guys who hit the holes in traffic, those that threw snow and reached, those that backed up their play with toughness, those with no real jam....yes, I could easily find a player who could and should be playing in a higher League or for a specific team...I can even spot those that never will.....
Telegram, telegraph, television, telephone...tellaref.....there isn't much that happens in a game in NY at 7:30 that doesn't make the west coast by 7:35.....
When David Poile was first starting to build Nashville a year before they started play, one of his scouts was usually in the restaurant/bar that the officials would go to after a game....the banter was always friendly and over a beer, the conversations were always Hockey related....the officials would talk about the game they reffed, inevitably talking about the real players vs the wannabees.....any smart scout would be listening and taking in the snippets of information that was "just talk".......after all, it isn't the nuclear bomb secrets being discussed.....smart guy that Poile.....
More often than not, those that get scouting jobs are good Hockey people, Bob Crocker, my coach at Penn is the Dean of Scouts......others, well......?
If the question is, Could a ref scout?" Yes...after he retires from the ice....
Pat Dapuzzo is a scout, Neil Armstrong was another, Denis Morel was a third.......baseball has many ex players who scout.......one of my favorite movies..."Trouble with the Curve" pretty well sums up the dilemma of betting your future on a teenager or a guy who's fooling the crowds.....Draft Day is another movie that shows what inside information can produce....the info isn't that "inside" especially if you were the ref and saw what others failed to notice.
.I'm no Albert Einstein but then again Albie was no Paul Stewart...not sure if Albert could skate or ever went to Hobey while he was at Princeton.....But then again, what do I know...I was just a ref....and a "goon".
