A SUMMER SMORGASBORD FOR SCOUTS
Hlinka Gretzky Cup brings the world’s best under-18 prospects together in one event
Before the Hlinka Gretzky Cup is anything else, it is the world’s greatest gathering of professional hockey scouts.
There are 285 scouts working the rebranded and relocated Hlinka Gretzky Cup that began on a very hot long weekend Monday in Red Deer and Edmonton with what seemed to be about 285 fans in the stands at Servus Arena and Rogers Place.
And there was no scout on the property, or the planet for that matter, who has witnessed more editions of this tournament than Goran Stubb, the European chief scout for NHL Central Scouting.
You want to know what this beston-best, eight-nation tournament is really all about? Helsinki-based Stubb is your man.
How many editions has he scouted, exactly?
“Well, all of them,” he said. “And more.
“There were other ones before that, when Canada and the USA had yet to start sending teams. They held those tournaments in Fuessen, Germany. So I guess I’ve been at about 30.”
There haven’t been many editions where the gathering of these nomadic people, who spend the winter driving through snowstorms to watch these same players, have been less excited about this traditional kickoff to another scouting season.
“Many scouts are not very happy with the decision to move it because where they usually stay in, say, Bratislava, (which) is a very nice place to be for so many of them from North America. They aren’t very happy that they must stay in North America.”
The tournament is normally based in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. But starting this year, it’s being held every second season in Edmonton and Red Deer.
“Hey, you have a lot of NHL teams that love this because it’s way cheaper. And next time we hold it here, it’ll be a great thing for the scouts to sit out in the Ice District and have beers on all these nice evenings we have in Edmonton after the games,” said Oilers Entertainment Group head Bob Nicholson.
For the scouts, with the directors of player personnel and all the people who run their drafts in addition to several general managers headed here, the event is a lot of things.
But one thing hasn’t changed throughout the years, said Stubb.
“The hockey hasn’t changed,” he said. “This is the first big tournament of the year for the players. They are 17 years old. It’s their draft year. They are full of enthusiasm, full of fighting spirit and they always give the most they have to give. It has always been a very good tournament. They hockey has more or less been the same.
“It’s summer hockey, but it’s a perfect beginning. In nine months, a lot could happen, but you get your first indication of what you are going to scout during the season. Very much because of what we see in the Hlinka tournament, we decide where we’re going throughout the season, what leagues and teams we’ll follow closest, and make those plans and schedules.
“To me, the Hlinka is the eyeopener. It shows you the path for the upcoming season. They might go up. They might go down. But this is the start.
“Every tournament has its own stories.”
Stubb said it’s a tournament a scout can’t help but love, regardless of whether it’s in the heart of Bohemia with plenty of beer from Pilsen, schnitzel, goulash and picture postcard scenes galore, or in the middle of the under-reconstruction downtown Edmonton.
“In hockey, you seldom get this kind of weather. And you realize as you watch it how difficult it would be to see so many players in such good competition at the start of their seasons. It would take a lot of time and a lot of travelling.
“But they ’re all here. You can see the best under-18 player prospects in the world at once.”
In all his years, Stubb said another thing stays the same.
“It’s a well-known tournament inside the hockey community, but fans in the Czech Republic or Slovakia have never been all that excited about it.
They are 17 years old. It’s their draft year. They are full of enthusiasm, full of fighting spirit and they always give the most they have to give.
“There have never been many fans. The fans have usually been the parents and the families of the players.”
Stubb said scouts are different than fans.
“These players are still unknown and this isn’t an official International Ice Hockey Federation event.
“But now it’s in Canada. Maybe now, after all these years, it will grow. I hope it does. It’s a hell of a nice tournament with very good hockey.”