First written: April 15, 2001 (updated May 10, 2004)

How do I get seen? By:  Alan Chim, Pacific Steelers

The most common question that I am often asked by prospective student
athletes is: How do I get seen by College Coaches?

In my view, there are four main ways of increasing your exposure to college
coaches. They are as follows:

 i.        Sending a Video to a College Coach;
ii.        Scouting Camps and College Promotional Services;
iii.       Scouted Tournaments with Your Club Team and Select Teams; and
iv.        Hockey Camps Run by a College Coach.

I think a more important question that a player should be asking
themselves, however, is whether they are in fact ready to be seen. If a
player does not exhibit the necessary technical skills that are required of
Division 1 level players, it is often counterproductive to be scouted by
college coaches.

As a player, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so
you want to make sure the college coaches first impression of you is a
positive one.

As such, I recommend that younger players focus more on opportunities to
develop their skills, such as attending top hockey camps and skill development
programs, instead of focussing on getting seen.

It is also important to recognize that each of the ways of being seen that
I have outlined about also have their own inherent pros and cons.  Some
ways are better suited for some players than others.

Generally, I like to sit down with my players, and give them an unbiased,
objective assessment of their playing abilities. If they are ready to be
seen, I help them map out a plan of attack to determine which exposure
opportunities they should employ to maximize their strengths.

If they are not ready to be seen, I sit down with both the player and the
coach and let them know the areas they need to work on in order to be ready
to be seen.

I will briefly outline each of these exposure methods and state some of the
pros and cons of each method:

i.       Video

I have had excellent experiences with video, and I highly recommend it as a means
of generating initial interest from a college coach. It is the only method of being seen in which you have total control over what is presented to the college coach.

A good video will have a good mix of skill drills as well as game play.
The video should demonstrate you have the basic hockey skills: skating,
stickhandling, shooting and passing. The length of the video varies, but
most college coaches prefer a tape between 10-15 minutes.

If you are sending in game footage, be sure to mark clearly on your video
tape what jersey colour and number you are wearing.

ii.        Scouting Camps

With more and more American Colleges and Universities incorporating women's hockey programs into their schools, there have been an abundance of scouting exposure camps which purport to market players to colleges, some of which are run by inexperienced and unqualified individuals.

Some of these services take an overload of prospects and do not properly promote or give each individual the proper attention needed to help market and promote a player for college hockey.

There are two types of scouting camp formats:

Scouting camps that have college coaches running the camp/coaching the teams and include a developmental component (off ice training, practices), are more analogous to hockey camps (described below).  These sorts of camps, such as Warner Hockey Showcase in Lethbridge, Alberta, generally have the same sorts of benefits, as you would find at a hockey camp, and therefore I do recommend them, for the same reasons I recommend attending hockey camps, provided that the college you are interested in, has a coach in attendance. The Warner Hockey Showcase, in particular, are run by individuals who are intimately involved in the recruiting process, and the format and design of their camp certainly reflects their knowledge.

There are also scouting camps, where college coaches are there primarily to watch the games, and do not have any direct involvement with the coaching. My experience in British Columbia is that these sorts of camp have become redundant, with more and more coaches attending other events/tournaments Last year, the most heavily scouted event in BC was the NASH SuperSeries Tournament. More college coaches attended NASH  than any other scouting camp.  Thus, it seems somewhat redundant for you to pay extra money to attend a scouting camp to be scouted, when other events are more heavily scouted. And, if you are already playing for a team that attends high profile tournaments on the East Coast, there really is no need to attend such camps, simply to be scouted.

iii.       Tournaments

The tournaments that are the most heavily scouted are the Vermont Tournament, US Nationals, Connecticut Polar Bear Tournament, and Brampton Canadettes tournament.

If you attend any of these tournaments, you will have been scouted by
the almost all of the colleges in the US.  There are no other events that
can come close to the exposure you would receive by attending these
tournaments.

If you play for a strong club team, I highly recommend being scouted in
this fashion.  The reasoning is that you will be playing with teammates who
you will be used to playing with, and working with a coaching staff in
which you are familiar.  And generally, in competing in a tournament, your
primary goal will be to play as a team and win.

I think the statistics support the conclusion that if you play for a strong
club team, you have a better chance of being recruited.  On the
Pacific Steelers Senior AAA team that attended the Connecticut Polar Bear
Tournament in December 2000, there were approximately 7 players who were
eligible to be recruited and had the full 4 years of remaining NCAA
eligibility. Of those 7 players, 3 were recruited by top Division 1
colleges (Niagara, Northeastern and Maine), and 1 was recruited by a top Division 3 school (Elmira).

On the Pacific Steelers Senior AAA team that attended  the Brampton Canadettes Tournament in April 2000, there was approximately 10
players who were eligible to be recruited.  Of those 10 players, 5 were
recruited by top Division 1 colleges (Niagara, Dartmouth, Harvard, Ohio State and Mercyhurst) while 1 was recruited by a top Division 3 school (Plattsburgh).

Further, you may want to consider participating on a strong spring/summer
select team. Various tournaments such as the NASH SuperSeries and Stampede Challenge are scouted by US colleges.

iv.        Hockey Camps.

Many colleges have week long summer camps for high school players.
Generally, these camps are not only staffed by coaches of these colleges,
but coaches from other colleges as well. Attending such a camp will give
the coaches a chance to get to know you on a personal level.

I think hockey camps are excellent ways to get exposure to college coaches.
Not only does it give the colleges a chance to assess your technical skills
throughout the week, but also an opportunity to assess your personality and
coachability which are underestimated but crucial factors in the recruiting
process.

Hockey camps give you that quality personal contact with coaches, that
tournaments and scouting camps simply cannot match.  While tournaments may be able to give you more exposure to different colleges, I believe hockey
camps give you more quality exposure to a few.

In closing, I once again would like to caution players as to the methods
they employ to get seen, and when they employ them.  Players should be seen
when they are “ready to be seen”, and the methods they employ should
enunciate their strengths and minimize their weaknesses
 

Alan Chim is the President and GM of the Pacific Steelers Program. He can be reached by e-mail at hockey@hockeybc.com