News

By John Hamre
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist

 

Scott Bell’s drive from his home in the Twin Cities to Green Bay to see the USHL’s Gamblers host the Bloomington Thunder begins at 1 p.m. Game time is set for 7 p.m. To some, Bell’s five-hour drive ahead may seem routine and filled with solitude. To the contrary, there is much work for Bell to do while crossing northern Wisconsin.

Bell’s car and Bluetooth become his office. He will spend most of the next four and a half hours on the phone. He will speak with coaches past, present and future of players he is scouting. He will speak to other scouts and an extensive network of hockey friends. His conversations will be probing and insightful, and will mostly revolve around the character attributes of players on his scouting list.  

Former and current coaches of a player provide extremely valuable insights, for they know players best. Bell can see how a player plays in the game, and will keenly look for much on the ice later in the evening. Most of his phone time is spent finding out what kind of person the player being discussed is. What is his character like? How does he handle adversity? How does he train or practice when not being watched? Was he respectful to teammates and people in the organization? Bell takes notes on each player, which he will later enter into his database of notes on each player he and the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins are tracking.

Arriving in Green Bay almost two hours early, Bell fills the gas tank for the ride home – a veteran scouting move for sure. Time saved leaving town after the game means an “earlier late-night” arrival home, and more rest for the next day’s travel.  

After a walk through Cabela’s to stretch out the legs, Bell arrives at the Resch Center next to historic Lambeau Field over an hour early. He speaks with the teams’ coaches and gets any final tidbits of knowledge on players and the teams before warm-ups and the game begins.

With an eye on the roster birthdates, throughout the game, notes are scribed and occasional comments shared. Players may be a prospect for the next draft, already drafted but still evaluated, or an over-age player for the draft but a free agent late bloomer. Bell evaluates a player’s attributes, such as skating ability, hockey sense, positional play, puck skills, shooting ability, compete level and so on. A special shot, great skating ability, and NHL caliber playing instincts and hockey sense will be noted as possessed or in question.  

What makes a player special? Do they play hard both offensively and defensively? Does the player possess that special level of “compete” that will allow him to make it to the NHL, and then survive? Can a player play regularly in the NHL? At what level of impact, and for how long? All of these attributes are meant to allow the organization’s staff to collectively project a player’s future, and eventually help them decide if they should consider drafting that player in the summer’s NHL Draft.

“You can learn about about the person by watching them play, too,” Bell said. 

Ultimately, NHL scouts must answer one question: Can a player play in the NHL?

 

 

Bell’s journey to the NHL as a scout began in Inver Grove Heights, Minn. He graduated from Simley High School in 1989 and played hockey for legendary coach Denny Schueller. Following his distinguished multi-sport high school career, Bell went on to play one season in the USHL for the Sioux City Musketeers and head coach Bob Ferguson (now the AHL general manager in the Anaheim Ducks organization). Bell recorded 35 goals and 77 total points in 48 games for Sioux City.  

Doug Woog and the University of Minnesota hockey staff then came calling. The following season he was on campus at Minnesota. Bell played hockey for the Gophers from 1990-95, where he was a two-time captain. He is the only Gopher to have been named the team’s Mike Crupi Most Determined Player three times. In 146 games with the Gophers, Bell recorded 41 goals, 81 total points and 268 penalty minutes. During his college career, the Gophers reached the NCAA Frozen Four twice, and were also WCHA regular season and playoff champions. Most importantly, Bell graduated with a communications degree and embarked on his professional playing and subsequent coaching and scouting career.

Through the vowels of professional hockey Bell played in the AHL, ECHL, IHL, and UHL – omitting the “O” (OHL) from consideration as an NCAA player. Between 1995 and 2000, he played in 116 total professional games, recording 40 goals and 77 total points.  

After a journeyed professional career – including stops in Providence, R.I., Columbus, Ohio, Quad Cities, Iowa, and Indianapolis, he began his coaching career, where he first played youth hockey, as an assistant coach at Simley High School in 1998. The following season, he coached with Augsburg College while attending graduate school.  He then spent a season in Fargo of the USHL, where he was an assistant coach to 1980 U.S. Olympic gold medalist Dave Christian. Returning to professional hockey, Bell held coaching positions with the Missouri River Otters, New Haven Knights and Rockford Ice Hogs of the UHL.  He returned to college hockey in the 2003-04 season, as an assistant coach at St. Thomas, and coached in the Upper Midwest High School Elite League in the fall of 2004.

Most notable in his college coaching career, Bell led the revival of the Hamline University hockey program from 2005-11. During his head coaching tenure, the Piper hockey program earned its first ever NCAA playoffs berth in school history in 2010-11.

Before taking on his current role as an amateur scout with the Penguins in 2012, Bell has been an assistant coach, head coach, general manager, assistant GM and player-assistant coach. He also has experiences working in business, both as a financial advisor and in sales.

With three children of his own, Bell volunteers much of his personal time helping to coach in the Edina Hockey Association where he resides. He has worked with players in the offseason through development clinics, camps, and through USA Hockey and Minnesota Hockey programs. This past summer, Bell was one of the coaches in the pro-college league at Braemar Arena known as the Da Beauty League.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to work in a business that I have a strong passion for. I truly enjoy going to work each day, and don’t feel like I’m doing work,” Bell said on his vocation in hockey.

Bell’s playing and coaching experiences have impacted his current work as a scout. He was a team-first player. Teams he has recruited and coached have thrived on team-first players with whom he could readily identify and relate.  

“The best coach I ever had was Merle Bryant. He was my tennis coach in high school,” Bell said

What made Coach Bryant so memorable and special to Bell? Bell described Bryant’s special ability to recognize and develop potential in talent and to put athletes in situations where they would succeed – traits Bell has carried into his subsequent coaching and scouting career.

“I started playing tennis in ninth grade,” Bell said. “In 10th grade, (Coach Bryant) put Will Short and me together (in doubles). We were all-conference for three years and team captains for two years. We had never played on club teams, or outside the season. We formed a really good team because he recognized what we were and taught us. He got us to be a really good doubles team because he could put us into situations we could succeed. We were never going to be pretty, but we could play. We had never played organized tennis until 10th grade, yet we won close to 20 matches a year.”

His athletic and hockey-playing experiences, and coaching and administrative hockey positions have built Bell’s internal acumen and intuitions which make him a thorough and effective scout of hockey talent. Bell has shown the consistent ability to identify highly-talented players who fit well within a team-first concept at the highest levels of competitive hockey.

“I enjoy putting the pieces of the puzzle together with teams,” Bell said.

Early in his post-playing career, Bell would help Howard Cornfield, then the general manager of the Quad City Mallards, secure players for his team.

”I always sent them players,” Bell said. “I sent them several league rookies of the year.  (Cornfield) said I had a good eye for talent.  I sent him one player from Augsburg, and said, ‘Just sign him and trust me.’ He signed him for the league minimum. (The player) ended up being Rookie of the Year and the scoring leader in the league. At the end of the year, he signed a three-way NHL contract.”

The list of Bell’s mentors through his hockey journey is long and distinguished. Besides several mentioned above, some of the many coaches who mentored and impacted Bell through his career also include Mike Schwartz (Augsburg College), Moe Mantha (12-year NHL veteran, former Minnesota North Star and 1992 U.S. Olympic Team captain) and current Minnesota Wild assistant coach John Anderson (then-Quad Cities coach).

Understanding leadership, team success and having been a captain on successful teams helps Bell to now recognize and rank the type of talent the Penguins will want to draft.  

“I was usually a captain on the team because I was a hard worker and team player,” Bell said. “I was into working and didn’t care about personal statistics. The only statistic I cared about was the ‘W.’ Accountability, honesty, selflessness, work ethic – those are the qualities that come to mind. Team first.”

The pinnacle of the competitive hockey journey is considered to be lifting the Stanley Cup high above one’s head. On June 12, 2016, in San Jose, Calif., Bell achieved that feat as a member of the Penguins organization, after Pittsburgh beat the Sharks in game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Always one who remembers where he came from, Bell brought the Stanley Cup to Inver Grove Heights this past September for a community open house at his hometown arena, the Veterans Memorial Community Center.  The Penguins then hosted their scouting staff at their home-opener to present members of the organization with their Stanley Cup Championship Rings.

Beyond these special moments, the job of an amateur scout can best be described through the cycle of the hockey season. It begins by watching many pre-season exhibition games, showcases, fall league games and training camps. An amateur scout’s season culminates at the annual NHL Draft the following summer. A season’s worth of scouting work is dedicated to preparing an NHL team to make its traditional seven picks (before trades and transactions) of amateur players to stock its shelves of playing talent for the future. Knowledge of many players is required to make sound picks of relatively few.

On the beginning of the scouting cycle Bell said, “It’s usually front-loaded. You try to earmark players to watch throughout the season. You see a lot of tournaments – junior league showcases, the high school Elite League, high school Christmas tournaments….”

From the beginning of the 2016-17 season, through Jan. 4, Bell has already seen and filed reports on 128 games. He will see and file reports on more than 250 games throughout this season before the NHL draft is conducted June 23-24 in Chicago.

“I watch Bantam AA all the way to NHL games,” Bell said. “You try to get in as many games up front, to see as many players as you can. Then you start narrowing your list and funnel it down.”

NHL teams’ amateur scouts log monumental mileages to develop their draft lists and help build the future team. The thorough and conscientious efforts of a team’s scout and scouting department leads to better draft picks, deeper organizational talent, more competitive teams and ultimately on-ice success with internally developed players. The work of a scout ultimately supports the business interests of the NHL franchise.  

While hockey is a business, the opportunities to help others through the work and successes with an NHL organization give Bell and other scouts further long-term purpose to their often-times solitary work. Bell likes to help others. He finds deeper meaning and purpose in his scouting travels, while fulfilling his duties for the Penguins.

“NHL scouts see a lot more games than college coaches, because NCAA coaches can only see so many games,” Bell said. “So a lot of college coaches rely on NHL scouts to be ‘bird dogs.’ For me that’s a fun thing. When I see a real good Bantam AA at my kid’s game, I tell a college or USHL team. Then when it works out, it’s fun to be a spoke in the wheel. It’s helpful for the kids and helpful for the teams. It’s one of the good byproducts of having a Bantam AA son that’s a goalie; you get to watch the teams they play, too.” 

 

 

Last Thursday, Green Bay beat Bloomington 4-2 in a well-played game.  The car is already fueled, and by 10 p.m., Bell is on the highway returning to home.  

With a passenger able to drive, Bell is able to log into his computer on this trip. Over the next three-and-a-half hours, a game report will be filed. Bell enters write-ups on all previously identified prospects in the game, and on any other player that positively caught his eye. He will then enter information learned on all players discussed earlier in the day from time on the phone. Simultaneously, Bell has the gold medal game of the World Junior Championship live streaming on his phone.

Getting home from Green Bay between 2-3 a.m., Bell was then on the way to the airport at 8 a.m., on Friday. The Penguins had mid-season meetings for their scouting staff to review and continue the process of building their draft list through the cycle of this season. Following three days discussing players and their mid-season draft list rankings in person, the scouting staff will dedicate the second half of the season to focusing on specific players, ranking prospects for the upcoming NHL Draft, and honing their draft list of players to be prepared on draft day for the plethora of possibilities that may be presented when their draft slots come up.  

Following the Penguins meetings, Bell returns to the Twin Cities on Monday. On Tuesday, he’s on his way to the USHL/NHL Top Prospects Game in Sioux Falls, S.D. The cycle of the season continues.

“Having a positive impact on someone’s life or career – that’s the fun part,” shared Bell while somewhere in the north woods of Wisconsin driving home from Green Bay.

 

During a 22-year coaching career, John Hamre has coached PeeWee, Bantam, high school, NCAA Division I, Junior A and minor professional hockey. He was most recently the Director of Hockey Operations for the University of Wisconsin men’s hockey team. Hamre was the video coach for the 1994 USA Men’s Olympic Team, coached within the USA Hockey NTDP, and at many USA Hockey festivals. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.