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Scouting America
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"Oh, I don't think it was that bad," laughed St. Sebastian's coach Steve Dagdigian, himself a high-school star who won a state championship at Needham High School with Robbie Ftorek and Cap Raedar, two former NHL coaches, and later starred for Harvard. "Our new rink is attached to the arts center and there's a window on the second floor where you can watch the game. It's a lot warmer than in the rink." Dagdigian said the scouts presented no problems for his players nor are they a new phenomenon at St. Sebastian's. The school has produced top talent for many years, including Chris Kelleher and Joe Hulbig before Dagdigian and, since his arrival nine years ago, former Boston University captain Mike Pandolfo, Carl Corrazini, another BU star now with the Providence Bruins, Harvard's Noah Welch and Northeastern's Mike Morris, the first-round pick of the San Jose Sharks in 2002. "I know many of the New England scouts from way back and most of them have been prominent in local hockey," Dagdigian said. "There's guys like Gary Eggleston, Bob Crocker, who was an assistant at BU when I was a kid, and Ron Anderson, who played for BU and coached Merrimack. Some of the scouts are new and some not from this area. This year, with several high-profile kids on our team, different guys came in because the teams wanted to get their impressions. There's a whole bunch of frequent visitors when you have someone that they are very interested in." Dagdigian said the scouts are unobtrusive, rarely speak to players and only sometimes ask him a few questions about a prospect. He said the scouts have never caused a problem for his team.
"The scouts are just background," he said. "The players may know one or two, but I don't think that enters into their thinking. They're pretty focused on the task at hand because there are so many good teams around they better be ready. They realize that if they don't concentrate on the game nobody's going to be coming to watch them. That's their forum, their showcase where they can show what they can do. Maybe I've been fortunate with the players that we've had but it's never been a problem."
Hiding behind posts "The scouts used to wear trench coats and we called them 'Columbo,'" said Barzee, who was the owner, GM and coach of the Dubuque USHL team for several seasons. "You'd see them with the collar up, standing in a corner. But hockey is a small world and we knew who they were. Herb Brooks used to disappear and you'd find him behind a post because he wanted to watch a game and everybody wanted to talk to him because he was a celebrity. I move around to get away from people who want to talk when I want to observe. It gives me a better chance to make the right decision." Eggleston has been watching hockey since the late 1950s and he knows some of the Americans he saw then, like Bill Cleary, Red Martin and others could have succeeded in the NHL. He still thinks Richie Hebner, who helped lead the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies to seven National League division titles in eight years, was the best New England hockey player he ever saw. Donnie Mason, the goalie on Newton High's 1960s state championship teams, never gave the NHL a second thought, instead fashioning a long career at shortstop with the San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres. It wasn't until after the expansion in 1967 that the door really opened to Americans and it was still a tough sell to convince teams that players like Ftorek, St. Louis Blues GM Larry Pleau, Bobby Sheehan and others could succeed, but they did. "People are mystified at how we do this," Eggleston said. "How do you know a player can go in the first round? You just know after doing it for years. Was Bill Guerin, playing then in Massachusetts juniors, better than a player with the Toronto Marlboros? He went with the fifth pick in the first round and I think he's justified it. After a while you just had the feeling Scott Young was a better player than the Canadian player being compared. After a few GMs agree, you become more comfortable. There's pressure in sticking your neck out and saying Tom Poti belongs in the first round. Out-of-town scouts would flood into town and tell us they were here because of me. They'd come and rip the guy and I'd say thanks for your support. It always made it difficult to stick to your guns. You're not always proven right until later on. Poti didn't go until the third round because of the dietary problem he had but he was a first-round player."
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