Scouting in a Pandemic
Dieppe, N.B.- If you’re looking to get into the Moncton Coliseum, the Superior Propane 4 Ice Centre, or ANY OTHER RINK IN zone 1, zone 2, or other rinks rinks across the Province, you may be shut out.
Thats because if you don’t have a kid on a current team, rink officials aren’t going to let you in.
And that makes things a little more difficult for teams, who employ scouts to try to discover their next generation of talent.
Justin Blackmore, who currently is a scout for the MHL’s Campbellton Tigers, has a first hand experience of what those struggles are like.
“Some rinks in the southern part of the province only allow family members to watch.”
While, that is a struggle for scouts like Justin, thankfully 2020 has blessed us with technological advances that grant us the privilege to be able to watch minor league hockey without having to leave our home.
“Previously I wasn’t able to watch games at home. Previously, they (teams) wouldn’t stream their games on YouTube, Facebook or other steaming services.” Blackmore went on to add “ it’s easier to watch teams you normally wouldn’t have a chance to see very often, and you also don’t have travel around as much. You also can go back and watch a period or an entire game over if you want to review something or if you were enable to catch bits of the game.”
Justin mentioned how the cameraman only follows the puck.
“It’s tough because you can’t see how a player anticipates a play or how he reacts with his teammates and coaches on the bench, behind the camera.”
“You don’t get to feel the momentum change like you do being in the rink.”
But limited camera angles aren’t the only issues with watching online.
Unlike CBC, who produce Hockey night in Canada every Saturday night in partnership with Rogers over the course of the NHL season, Midget AAA hockey teams aren’t equipped with state of the are high definition cameras. So with limited budget and resources, teams are left with streaming games on iPhones or cheaper HD capable cameras with spotty connection to the internet or cellular service. That often leaves the viewers at home with an inconsistent picture while watching the game.
“There are some streams where you can actually count the pixels, there are so many. Some viewers comment on the Facebook streams saying how they’ll have to visit the optometrist after watching that specific game.”
Thankfully for scouts like Justin, not all games have to be consumed in this way. He can travel to Bathurst to watch the Northern Moose play teams in the NB-PEI Major U-18 Hockey League and plans to do just that in a couple weeks.
The Atlantic Bubble also makes life easier for scouts, where the can travel amongst the provinces to rinks that allow fans.
“This weekend, I was going to go to PEI to watch a tournament for the NB-PEI league, but because of Zone 1 and Zone two going back to orange phase in New Brunswick, that was canceled. Luckily, I was able to travel to Pictou, NS to watch the Jamboree they were holding for their U-18 league.”