kmad said:
How important is a player's humility when being scouted or drafted?
Some players have led excellent careers despite their egos (Hull, Jagr) while some players' careers have been ruined by their ego (Daigle, F. Fedorov). How important is it to scouts/GMs for a player to be humble? Does it even effect their assessment of the player?
Having met Daigle once, and knowing a few people who have collaborated with him somewhat... yeah, he's not the most humble person in the world.
But I'm not sure it was ego as much as just a great lack of commitment. I guess you can tie it up to ego and that's probably the problem: Ego can have negative or positive repercussion.
If you are very talented and have a real passion for hockey, ego can probably help you.
If you are not so talented and/or have other priorities, you'll struggle with your ego problem throughout your career.
Obviously Brett Hull has always loved hockey, his father was a legend and seems to have inspired him enormously and on top of that, he has some of the best scoring hands of all-time. He also has one of the most underrated hockey sense, IMO.
Daigle is another story, doesn't seem to care about hockey as much. Thus his sense of self-importance tells him to commit elsewhere.
As a second addendum to answer your question, I don't know exactly how much scouts take ego into consideration but I strongly suspect they are much more weary of this then they were 15 years ago. There is much less place for creativity today. Even the Golden Brett had to make compromise and put his ego on the side somewhat, starting in Dallas. It is thanks to this IMO that he has remained fairly effective despite getting up there in age.
There is less room for individuality today. It's more about knowing where everybody else is on the ice and knowing where you have to be too. Collective work.