What if...

[Leafed]

A few posters on this board who shared the most knowledge on prospects worked together to make a HF Boards List similar to organizations such as ISS, CSS.

There seems to be a debate on how elite and illustrious of a group the NHL and various agencies' scouts are in. Are there posters on here who share the same knowledge and knack?

I don't post much but looking around I can tell the difference between posters who amass their knowledge through secondary research; what they read, other lists, etc. (like me) and those who actually attend games and have been around the game enough to notice player habits, limiting coaching styles, etc.

If this is done already and I was just unaware of it, sorry. (And I don't mean Board-wide mock drafts where polls are used, because anyone can chime in to that.)

I was thinking more of the Elite prospect posters on the board. Would you be interested?

Furthermore, who are the posters with the most knowledge? How would the very brightest be determined? I've noticed a few people on here though I won't drop names just yet.

Anyway, what do you think?

I think it would be pretty cool to compare to the "professional's lists" and maybe even a fulfilling and proud feeling for the chosen people

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[member 30781]

I live in Jersey so I obviously can't watch live games, but I do watch plenty via the internet. I'd love to try this out. I am actually finished my first mock draft of the season and will be posting up on my prospect blog within a few days.

EDIT: I also attended a few games in Buffalo for the World Juniors to see some of the prospects that will be drafted this year.

 

[SDig14]

IMO, the problem would obviously be the players ranked outside of North America and integrating everyone's lists together. For example, I could see 42 live WHL games, watch some on tv, and order my usual amount of archived games, but unless I get lucky I would rarely see the east coast players.

I know a lot of smaller services do this as well and then integrate their lists somehow, but head scouts have the luxury of seeing a lot more players and can go outside of NA as well.

If there were some reliable European posters that see a ton of games it could turn out pretty well though.

 

[Number 57]

We'd only need 2-3 people per region. There are plenty of European posters around that can see the prospects playing overseas.

The problem would be to put all of the region lists together into a huge master list. Who would do it? He'd need to weight in the opinions of multiple posters from around the world... just like a real head scout/GM does in real life.

Would be amazing to see. I know 2-3 great QMJHL posters that I could nominate. I don't see enough games myself to qualify.

Wouldn't be THAT hard to do. The tricky part would be the master list IMO.

 

[doubledown99]

Great idea OP.....

The only difficulty I see is that it would be tough for any one poster to be able to watch all the leagues and thus compare the leagues/players against one another.

But there are some very knowledgeable posters (Brock Otten-OHL, Renegade Stylings-WHL, Joe Hallenback-WHL, Scoutman1-QMJHL, Hiishawk, leoleo, Kirk Luedeke-all leagues, Gare Joyce-all leagues, etc).

So the capability is there.

I do want to say that I appreciate knowledgeable posters giving their opinions on prospects. It's nice reading all your opinions and learning about the players. These boards are great because of you folks. So kudos to you.

 

[R S]

It's a great idea, but like others have said, it's hard to put together any type of list when certain guys only see one league (for the most part), like myself.

I watch as much OHL, Q and u-18's as I can...but I still don't feel like I have a great handle on those players outside the first 45-60 from those leagues.

 

[birddog*]

A few posters on this board who shared the most knowledge on prospects worked together to make a HF Boards List similar to organizations such as ISS, CSS.

There seems to be a debate on how elite and illustrious of a group the NHL and various agencies' scouts are in. Are there posters on here who share the same knowledge and knack?

I don't post much but looking around I can tell the difference between posters who amass their knowledge through secondary research; what they read, other lists, etc. (like me) and those who actually attend games and have been around the game enough to notice player habits, limiting coaching styles, etc.

If this is done already and I was just unaware of it, sorry. (And I don't mean Board-wide mock drafts where polls are used, because anyone can chime in to that.)

I was thinking more of the Elite prospect posters on the board. Would you be interested?

Furthermore, who are the posters with the most knowledge? How would the very brightest be determined? I've noticed a few people on here though I won't drop names just yet.

Anyway, what do you think?

I think it would be pretty cool to compare to the "professional's lists" and maybe even a fulfilling and proud feeling for the chosen people

Problem is with most guys on this forum they comment on players without actually having seen them. I'm gonna say this goes for yourself as well.

While posters disagree with these list, at least the scouts involved have seen them play. Which is why I don't get to nit-picky--since I haven't seen 3/4 of the kids play.

I'm sure you'll have planty of input and argument from the rafters--posters will tell you this guys is better then that guy--without even having seen this guy or that guy play.

 

[Kevin Forbes]

There's definitely an issue with groupthink, which can be found anywhere, but the other part that complicates it more is the anonymity of the Internet.

To bring up that Kabanov-firestorm from a few weeks back, I know Lalaprise from meeting him at the rink and from talking with him, I know some of his credentials. But to an outside observer, that isn't worth a hill of beans. In that Kabanov thread, a number of Isles fans went after his 'claims' to be working as a scout. How do you distinguish what's real and what's not? How do you distinguish who actually knows what they're talking about and who is just promoting a player because he plays for their hometown team?

There's some accountability there with most of the professional scouting services (it's unlikely a poser would be hired by ISS in the first place, but he'd likely be fired shortly thereafter once it became clear that he wasn't qualified) and for some of the wannabes, there is at least some credibility in the marketplace (look at how many of you actually considered Mark Seidel's list as being anything more than a novelty).

There's plenty of opinion on here, but separating the wheat from the chaff is, at times, impossible.

 

[Leafed]

What if the ones interested in working on the project had to convince us why they should be chosen? (No one's saying write a persuasive essay, but something along the lines of a certain criteria involving how many games you watch, how long you've been a serious fan, etc.)


As well I appreciate the positive feedback on the idea from everyone.

 

[Fulcrum]

Looks like a good scouting team is needed to find the right scouts to do this, who should be on that scouting team? wait a minute

 

[leoleo3535]

There are numerous people on here that are qualified - are legit scouts, hockey broadcasters, agents, coach hockey, recognized hockey media, work in hockey etc. etc.
In addition to the above they attend lots of games and watch alot of hockey.
Without above or similar quailifications "fans" attending games are not on par....if they were then every season ticket holder could claim to be a scout.
This is not a knock on fans.........but in fairness if you knew a "scouting service" was made up of fans would you take it seriously?
Obviously most cannot/ do not cover/travel the globe.
That can be overcome...just like NHL clubs....they have regional scouts and all the info is fed back to the team.
Put the right team together and it would work....that is what the services do.
Do we require another service? perhaps....perhaps not...
However- there are other problems....bias is one..... ie dialogue / ranking a client, dialogue / ranking a player you coach, dialogue / ranking a player on the club you work for etc. etc.
As far as verifying who is legit that is not hard.
I have only been on these boards a short time and know many of the "qualified".....could determine from their comments, have hooked up with many at the games etc.
It is doable and could be fun but in order to do it right some strings would have to be attached.

 

[SDig14]

There are numerous people on here that are qualified - are legit scouts, hockey broadcasters, agents, coach hockey, recognized hockey media, work in hockey etc. etc.
In addition to the above they attend lots of games and watch alot of hockey.
Without above or similar quailifications "fans" attending games are not on par....if they were then every season ticket holder could claim to be a scout.
This is not a knock on fans.........but in fairness if you knew a "scouting service" was made up of fans would you take it seriously?
Obviously most cannot/ do not cover/travel the globe.
That can be overcome...just like NHL clubs....they have regional scouts and all the info is fed back to the team.
Put the right team together and it would work....that is what the services do.
Do we require another service? perhaps....perhaps not...
However- there are other problems....bias is one..... ie dialogue / ranking a client, dialogue / ranking a player you coach, dialogue / ranking a player on the club you work for etc. etc.
As far as verifying who is legit that is not hard.
I have only been on these boards a short time and know many of the "qualified".....could determine from their comments, have hooked up with many at the games etc.
It is doable and could be fun but in order to do it right some strings would have to be attached.

I agree for the most part, but the distinction between a job and a passion/hobby would need to be defined more clearly IMO.

For example, If there was a 40 year old poster on HF that had played the game for 15 years, the ability to see a lot of games, but had no formal credentials, I would tend to trust that person's judgement more than a 30 year old who never played the game, got into coaching at a young age, worked his way up slowly and is no doing some legitimate work for some organization, at least more formal than nothing at all.

And for the record, no this is NOT the situation I am in

I just have a tough time distinguishing between someone that knows the game inside and out with no formal occupation and someone that has credentials that seem to check out but simply don't have the necessary skills to do this sort of work.

 

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

I think it would be very beneficial for posters (like myself) who rely heavily on what others see as a guide to player's skills, tendencies and potential. But the thing is, HFBoards is a place where posters pool resources i.e. scouting reports, video clips, articles etc. on what they've heard/read/seen.

I think it would be great to read through posts where qualified members give their input on different prospects. All in all, I think the community here at large will disregard that outlet though because of the scouting reports, video clips, articles etc. they've already gathered by reading through these boards.

Not to say it would be pointless... because I'm sure many would really appreciate it. Outside of the practicability of something like this being orchestrated, I just think that people will more likely make up their mind based on their own internet-based research than valuing other poster's opinions.

I hope something like this happens though, it's a great idea.

 

[S E P H]

There are numerous people on here that are qualified - are legit scouts, hockey broadcasters, agents, coach hockey, recognized hockey media, work in hockey etc. etc.
In addition to the above they attend lots of games and watch alot of hockey.
Without above or similar quailifications "fans" attending games are not on par....if they were then every season ticket holder could claim to be a scout.
This is not a knock on fans.........but in fairness if you knew a "scouting service" was made up of fans would you take it seriously?
Obviously most cannot/ do not cover/travel the globe.
That can be overcome...just like NHL clubs....they have regional scouts and all the info is fed back to the team.
Put the right team together and it would work....that is what the services do.
Do we require another service? perhaps....perhaps not...
However- there are other problems....bias is one..... ie dialogue / ranking a client, dialogue / ranking a player you coach, dialogue / ranking a player on the club you work for etc. etc.
As far as verifying who is legit that is not hard.
I have only been on these boards a short time and know many of the "qualified".....could determine from their comments, have hooked up with many at the games etc.
It is doable and could be fun but in order to do it right some strings would have to be attached.

I agree with this. You can tell the posters who watch games as fans and as jobs/passion.

As for the plan I believe that majority of the intelligent posters here are not as biased as it seems. Yes there will be debates, but we would have posters from all over the country so if there is battle between the OHL and Q about Huberdeau or Strome, posters who are experts from the dub, ushl, ncaa, and etc. can comment and vote. A lot like the Central Scouting does their list.


E: The biggest problem I see isn't leagues as I mentioned above, but countries. I know a few posters that hate American prospects and vise verse with Canadians. Same with Finnish hating Swedish hating Russian hating Suiss, etc. I myself personally hate this.

 

[Breakfast of Champs]

It seems like there could be an issue with players outside of north america. If that is the case then maybe a NA list could be made? Or maybe even just a chl list, because I know there are many qualified chl scouts posting on these boards