I've become increasingly cynical of most scouts ability to actually do anything of use. I asked a WC level ref on how people become scouts (his brother is one) he said its pretty much 100% about knowing the right people.
I'm interested in pro scouting but it's difficult to really gauge your results to some extent as well as the value of players. I guess it wouldn't be that bad to make lists of players you expect to break out or vets you think could be acquired cheap and see if they work out. I would like to get into amateur scouting but there are a number of issues. It costs money to stream, you can't focus on certainly players on a stream like you can live, you probably don't have access to practices (though I don't know if regular scouts do), and I'm working on some other things that require a lot of focus so it would be quite the gamble for something I've shown no ability to do.
In terms of breaking in a close family friend's son who was also my sister's best friend growing up is one of the top executives for Aquilini's construction business. Actually not sure how he got the job as he wasn't the best student IIRC but he's a hard worker and has seemingly done quite a good job. So I could maybe have an in there, but I really hate asking people for favors. If I did a poor job it would reflect real poorly on him and I don't like that responsibility.
What I did think of as a possibly viable idea was to just make your own scouting lists and get them notarized with the date so you could send them in as essentially a resume to a number of teams. If you're actually good at it one team might take notice and give you a shot, even just as an unpaid intern.
Story Time:
My father worked at the Hotel Vancouver for decades. He has all kinds of stories on celebrities, hockey players, Vancouver "big shots", and even gangsters. I could tell you a story or two about Linden, Bure, Gino, Keenan, Burke, which of those and other players around the league are good guys and which ones are assholes etc.
One of my favorite stories was the time one of the referees my dad was friendly with gave him a bunch of tickets to the finals in '94. Like a bunch of them and told him to just give them to his friends or whatever. Prime centre ice tickets. Back then hockey wasn't as big a deal and literally none of their friends had much interest in going. They decided they would take 4 seats for themselves to have some extra room and an air gap between anyone else and sell the rest so they aren't sitting in the middle of like 10 empty seats and scalp the rest. They thought it wasn't a big deal if they sold them, but thought the referee might be offended or something if they used his good will to make a profit rather than giving them to friends as he wouldn't know they couldn't give them away and who knows when my dad would see him again. Then the news crews showed up and said "They're selling tickets!" and rushed over to them while my parents covered up and fled to their car to get away.
Turns out they were the NHL's executive tickets where guys like Bettman would be sitting that just weren't being used as they weren't attending. I'll always be proud of my dad for scalping Bettman's tickets
. I wonder what his reaction would have been if he showed up and there were a bunch of strangers who say they bought the tickets from a scalper sitting in his seats
ANYWAY
He told me that Nonis got his job by finding Burke at the hotel (I think) one day and pretty much asking him how he can get into the business, can he intern etc. Burke told him to make a schedule of Canucks' air travel for the year and didn't really expect much of it, just some random guy who was just asking for a job, but then the mad man Nonis actually did it and did a good job and found himself working for Burke. Impressed that Burke kept his word and took a chance on him even if Nonis never became a very good NHL executive, just like I'm impressed Aquilini took a chance of that family friend.
That one isn't first hand though, it's not like he was standing right there, so it's just what he heard and is liable to be wrong. I'm not even sure where he heard it, but given his interactions over the years with all kinds of people I trust him on it.
Also one time Burke ran a stop sign on my mom at Halifax and either Kensington or Sperling while she was pregnant with me. I came very not so close to being killed by Burke one fateful day in 1990!
but not really I'm obviously just being dramatic