Storms, Double Headers, and Fully-Charged Phones: Life of an NHL Scout

No two days are ever the same for an NHL amateur scout, and sometimes Mother Nature likes to throw a wrench in just for fun.

Like many nights from September until May, Canucks' area scout Phil Golding was at a rink in North Bay, Ontario, watching a prospect. He arranged an interview with a player after the game and had plans to head home shortly after.

Mid-way through the game he got wind of a storm brewing, but he didn't want to try and outrun it. He needed to get the interview, even if that meant he was stuck at the rink for a while and it added hours to his trip home. To some, this would be a major inconvenience, but Golding takes it all in stride.

"It's a privilege to travel around and go watch hockey games," he said. "For someone who loves hockey, it's awesome."

"There are times when you're stranded, if you're at a game in a city and you have a hotel booked somewhere else. It's always safety first, but there are times when you unexpectedly hit a snow storm and you're white-knuckling it."

He's got plenty of stories. Earlier this year he was driving from Cornwall to Ottawa, snow coming down and piling up on the roads, that turned a one-hour trip into three. To avoid trucks on the highway he pulled off onto the side roads and called fellow Canucks scout Pier-Alexandre Poulin to talk about players and their scouting lists for the last hour of his drive.

"I'll call my wife or other scouts and we'll talk our way through the storm," Golding shared. "The drives feel shorter when you're able to make a call even at a late hour, to talk hockey or anything else. There's kind of a code, that we [scouts] can call each other at late hours and across time zones when we're on the road, even if one of us is sitting at home."

Building a schedule of games to attend and prospects to see is one of the toughest parts of the job. Seeing as many games and players as possible while having it make sense geographically and monetarily, is like a game of Tetris.

"One of the quirks about working in Ontario is that we can sometimes do double-headers - 2 p.m. game in Mississauga, 6 p.m. in Oshawa - and still be home by the end of the night," he said.

Golding has a unique perspective, and his Ontario hockey knowledge is deep. A Guelph native and self-proclaimed hockey nerd, he obsessed over the NHL Draft and prospect evaluation at a young age. He played growing up and knew he wanted to work on the business operations side. During his 12-year career with the Guelph Storm, head coach Scott Walker and general manager Mike Kelly noticed his knack for hockey knowledge gave him his start as a scout for Western Ontario. The Storm won the OHL championship in 2019 and Golding made the jump to the Canucks that same year.

"My experience in the OHL has given me a network. It's given me context, and I can lean on the historical knowledge of the Ontario Hockey League," he said.

He assesses a player's on-ice performance two ways: where they are now and where they can be in three or four years. He also speaks to several people around the player to round out his impression and looks for consistency of character and what that projects to be as well. As a general rule, he doesn't talk to a player's agent.

"You're looking for an unbiased, straight answer. It's most interesting when you speak to people like the equipment manager or athletic therapist," he said.

Golding says he couldn't do what he loves without his family's support and support from the organization. When he has a couple weekdays off when he's not on the road for extended periods, he falls into the school drop-off and pick-up routine with his wife Nicole and his children - Nora, 10, Jordan, six, and Charlotte, four.

"The Canucks organization has been great in that sense, supporting us and making sure we are around our families. It's family first," he said.

In the offseason, Golding likes to spend time with his family and enjoys the things he doesn't get to do when he's on the road. He doesn't totally unplug, as he keeps up with international schedules in the summer, but he rests up for those long drives during scouting season.