It was a blustery day in Stockholm a couple years ago when your correspondent happened upon a friend in a downtown café who works as a scout for an NHL team.

After the usual banter about life and politics, the topic turned to hockey -- what else? -- and the scout was asked whether he had heard that a certain player on an Eastern Conference team was being shopped around the League. The asking price was allegedly a minor-league prospect, along with a player who was still playing junior hockey.

The scout replied that he hadn't heard the rumor but judging by the names being bandied about, it seemed like a fair swap - a top-eight player for two prospects. The scout then unpacked his laptop computer and two clicks later gave a detailed scouting report on the prospects, from both a historical and current perspective, and his assessment of the trade.

The fact that the scout had this detailed information at his fingertips was once unheard of in hockey circles. But the scouting world has joined the computer age and cyberspace is an important tool in tracking players on a global scale.

There was a time not that long ago when computers were not common among members of the scouting fraternity. Back then, it was a given that a scout would go on a trip and then put his report on a player or players in the mail and send it to his employer. The report would reach the club in a week or longer and someone at head office would have to take the time to arrange the reports accordingly. That is providing they didn't get lost in the mail.

Russia's Alexander Ovechkin is already the overwhelming choice for the No. 1 pick at the 2004 NHL Entry Draft. So scouts from every team will be sure to pack their laptops in order to keep up with the latest news on the future impact player.

But that was then and this is now.

Now, the report either arrives the same night as the game or the next day via e-mail.

David Conte, the director of scouting for the New Jersey Devils, starts his day by reading the overnight reports from his hockey bloodhounds.

"It (computers) is an essential tool," Conte said. "I don't know how we did it without them."

"Everything is at your fingertips and you are not walking around with binders and books," adds Pierre Gauthier, the director of pro scouting for the Montreal Canadiens. "It used to be all paper and the use of computers has certainly improved the business."

If a general manager wants to assess a player, he can now reach into the ready-to-use database and see the last 20 reports on the player as filed by his scouts, both on the pro and amateur side of the business.

Computers have become more and more vital in how teams monitor how up-and-coming players are developing and how an older players are tailing off. Teams can use programs which chart the whole life history of a player, from the amateur reports to right up to the pros, and it's this perspective which figures into trading players.

"You can see what the amateurs were projecting and what the player has become," says Gauthier.

There are computer programs that offer a ranking system for players available in the NHL Entry Draft. The programs can sort players by position, style of play, leagues, age and on-ice habits. The programs offer generic information, such as statistics and injuries and the database is constantly updated.

Data transmission is quick and efficient and it allows users to get updates from anywhere in the world.

Before drafting a highly touted prospect like Eric Staal, teams now have the luxury of using computer programs, which can chart the whole life history of a player.

"Everything the scouts do, they can do in the program. They can do their schedule, their game reports, their lists and rankings," says Jim Price, president of RinkNet Scouting Software. He has 24 of the NHL's 30 teams using his scouting program.

"For pro scouting, they can do depth charts of all the other teams in the NHL and every player in the NHL. There's not much you can't do."

And there's also another use for computers.

"Solitaire and movies," jokes Conte. "Some of the places we go in search of players are way out of the way and the computers provide a source of entertainment."

Lastly, the trade involving the Eastern Conference player never happened. It was just another rumor, one of the thousands you hear over the course of a season.