The Saskatoon Blades haven’t been on the ice since March 18, but the team’s regional scouts are working overtime preparing their reports ahead of the Western Hockey League (WHL) Bantam Draft.
Dan Tencer, director of scouting for the Blades, attends about 400 games a year. He identifies bantam hockey talent and this past weekend, he attended the Western Canadian Bantam Hockey Championships in Warman, Sask.
After the givens of height and weight of a player, he grades skating ability, puck skill, and how a player reacts when an opponent has his stick on you.
“We’re looking for a player that is able to consistently process the game well enough to make the right decisions over and over again.”
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Aside from raw athletic talent, Saskatoon’s general manager Colin Priestner looks for something he calls the “Blade Factor.”
The regional scouts have a full-time job. They begin identifying talent in August. Throughout the season, they attend up to 400 games, watching how a player develops.
“When you’re drafting and looking at a 14-year-old player, you’re projecting where they’re going to be three or four years from now, so they better be showing incremental improvement at this point, or else you can’t expect to see any going forward,”Tencer, who has been scouting for the Blades since 2013, said.
When the Blades key on some players that interest them, the first step is reaching out to the parents. They’re also in close contact with the players’ coaches, asking about the techniques and strategies the athlete is being taught on the ice. While the athlete no doubt gets excited about the prospect of being drafted, the scouts hope the player continues to focus on his team and adding to its success.
“I don’t want a kid that is going to be paying a lot of attention to how many scouts are in the stands. I want a player who’s going to play the same way whether I’m there or not,” Tencer added.
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The Blades do everything possible to get to know the character of a player. They even call the players teachers. About three months ahead of the bantam draft, they have the players and parents fill out a questionnaire.
“You don’t glean a ton from them because you don’t know if the parents are helping them fill it out or if they’re just telling you what you want to hear, but the really high character ones you can tell they stand out,” Priestner said.
The Blades have also been known to turn away talent, due to parents’ personalities.
“They’ll be a parent here this weekend that’ll take his kid off the board unfortunately. You’ll see parents who are screaming and yelling at the ref, screaming and yelling at their kid. You’re thinking, ‘Why would I want to deal with that influence exerted on that player, when I could take someone whose one peg worse talent wise whose got really supportive parents,'” Priestner said.
At the end of the day, of the hundreds of players Priestner and Tencer see each year, only a handful end up in Blades jerseys, “it’s a fun process but it’s kind of tiring because you know that out of all the players that you end up loving in the draft, you’re going to end up with five per cent of them.”
“The culmination of all of the work that we do as scouts all year is draft day. That day you should be really excited because you’re going to be adding some really significant pieces to the future of your hockey team that day,” Tencer said.
Though the Blades missed the playoffs this year, it’s possible some of the pieces they add in this year’s draft, which is May 4 in Calgary, will flip the script for the future.
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