How to become a hockey scout

Most NHL scouts got their first scouting job with a junior club, often part-time, or went into scouting straight from playing or coaching. Club staff bios show the same steps again and again: a few seasons covering a region for a WHL, OHL or QMJHL team, then an NHL club hires you as an amateur scout for that region. None of the club bios we read mention a degree, and a few people with no NHL playing career were hired after a club judged their reports or film work.

How an NHL scouting staff is set up

Clubs split scouting into amateur and pro. Amateur scouts watch players who have not been drafted yet, and pro scouts watch players already in the NHL and AHL.

The Devils described their amateur side in an August 2025 feature. Regional scouts do most of the groundwork. Each one learns a region, watches players many times, and talks to prospects, coaches and billet families. A smaller crossover group, which in New Jersey includes the chief scout, the director of amateur scouting and the head of CHL scouting, travels to see the top 50 to 60 players in a draft wherever they play. Most of the scouts in this guide started at the regional level.

The league also runs its own bureau. NHL Central Scouting has ranked draft prospects for clubs since 1975-76. In October 2026 the NHL said it had nine full-time and eight part-time scouts across North America, and that it starts evaluating a draft class almost two years before the draft. Its preliminary watch list comes out in the fall and is meant as a second opinion for clubs, not a replacement for their own staff.

The most common first job: scouting for a junior club

When the Bruins added two amateur scouts in September 2026, both came from junior scouting departments. Leland Mack had spent 10 seasons scouting for the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds and was director of scouting for the Prince George Cougars in 2025-26. Josh Cooper spent two years scouting for the OHL’s London Knights, after working with a Greater Toronto Hockey League U16 team.

The Senators’ 2024 profile of their amateur scouts shows the same pattern. George Fargher spent two years scouting for the WHL’s Tri-City Americans. Christian De Blois started with the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats for five seasons. Bob Strumm Jr. started as a part-time scout with the Portland Winterhawks, joined Ottawa part-time midway through 2016-17 and went full-time in 2021-22.

Several started part-time. Stephane Leblanc, now the Sharks’ director of CHL scouting, was a physical education teacher who coached his school’s team. A Hockey Canada contact asked him to scout for the QMJHL’s Saint John Sea Dogs. That led to three years as a part-time Columbus scout covering the QMJHL while he was still teaching, then four to five years full-time with Columbus before San Jose hired him. His advice to young people was to get involved in hockey and build connections early.

Most of the scouts above started with a club in the WHL, OHL or QMJHL, so if you live near one of those teams, that club is the place to ask.

Former players and coaches

Many NHL scouts went straight from playing. Kyle Flanagan finished a seven-year pro career with the Belleville Senators in 2018 and went directly into scouting for Ottawa. Scott Lachance played 14 pro seasons, the last in the AHL, before Lou Lamoriello hired him as the Devils’ amateur scout for New England. He is now their head of US scouting. Ricard Persson played 229 NHL games and played in Europe and Japan until 2010, then joined the Wild as an amateur scout. Minnesota promoted him to director of amateur scouting in June 2026.

Coaching is the other common route. Mark Leach played at St. Lawrence and coached at Michigan Tech and Boston College before the Red Wings hired him as an amateur scout in 1994. He scouted for Detroit for 20 seasons and Dallas for 11 before Toronto named him director of amateur scouting in 2024.

Former club owners and agents get hired too. The Oilers added Aaron Nagy, an OJHL club president and player agent, as an amateur scout in 2024.

Getting in without an NHL playing career

Noelle Needham and Blake Bolden were hired by NHL clubs without having played in the NHL.

Noelle Needham played at Minnesota State Mankato on a scholarship after major knee injuries, then left hockey for a time. She came back by volunteering to coach a girls’ team and co-founded Legend Hockey, a training program in the Midwest. Ryan Hardy, who had met her at a rink, suggested her to Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas as an unusual candidate. She had never scouted. Toronto ran a blind audition in which candidates wrote reports on prospects that were graded without names attached, and the Leafs hired her as an amateur scout in 2018.

Blake Bolden played at Boston College and in the NWHL. Luc Robitaille asked her about scouting at a Kings game, and she interviewed after reviewing game film. She became a Kings pro scout in January 2020.

In both cases the club judged a piece of work before hiring. Keep a file of your own written reports on real games so you have something to show.

What junior clubs ask for in a scout

We found few scouting jobs posted on clubs’ own sites, and the ones we found are short. The Saskatoon Blades advertised for a scout based in British Columbia in 2022. The job was to attend games every week during the season, evaluate draft-eligible players, report on players the club had already drafted or listed, and flag possible list or trade targets. WHL scouting experience was an asset but not required. The club asked for a cover letter, a hockey resume, at least two references and sample scouting reports if the applicant had them, and said only that pay would match experience.

The Rockland Nationals, a Junior A club in the CCHL, list openings for regional scouts in the northeast and central US and western Canada. Their scouts watch players aged 15 to 19 at midget AAA, junior, high school, prep school and academy levels, and build the lists the club uses for tenders and camp invitations. The Ontario Jr Reign of the USPHL’s NCDC describe their scout job as an intern position. They want someone who can evaluate players from live games and video, write reports on upcoming opponents, keep a recruiting database, and use scouting software such as InStat as well as Excel.

None of these postings gives a pay figure, so ask before you commit to the driving.

What the work looks like

The Devils followed Lachance through one week in western Canada and the Pacific Northwest. He flew from Boston to Seattle and saw five games in seven days, with drives from Seattle to Vancouver and from Calgary to Edmonton. He used the one night without a game for paperwork and travel. He rates players on skating, skill, sense, size and strength, and spirit. He takes notes by hand during games, files a report after each one, and reads the regional scouts’ reports at the end of the week. He tries to stay seven to 10 days in a region before moving on.

Central Scouting’s full-time staff watch about 3,000 games a season between them, according to the NHL. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics describes scouts’ hours as irregular, with evenings, weekends and holidays, and frequent travel.

Training and pay

We found no scouting course run by a university, Hockey Canada, USA Hockey or the CHL. The BLS says that for most scouting jobs playing experience is not usually required. It also says coaches and scouts typically need a bachelor’s degree, though none of the club bios above mention one.

There is no official pay figure for hockey scouts alone. The BLS groups coaches and scouts together and gives a US median of $47,320 a year for May 2025, with the lowest 10 percent under $28,790 and the highest 10 percent over $98,860. It also notes that part-time work is common. Job Bank Canada counts sports scouts with coaches under NOC 53201 and gives a national median of $25.00 an hour. Most people in both groups are coaches, so the figures say little about what a hockey scout earns.

Where to start

Go to junior games and write a report on every one. Then ask the local junior club whether its scouting staff needs help in your area. That is how Strumm, Fargher, De Blois and Leblanc started. Coaching gets you known in the same rinks. Leblanc, Needham and Bolden were each hired after someone in hockey put their name forward.

Open roles are in our scouting jobs, and the Boston Bruins page shows any openings with a club that hired two junior scouts in September. The Jr Reign posting asks for video analysis, and the Bruins hired a video scout this fall, so our guide to how video coaches get hired is worth reading too. If you run a team and need a regional scout, you can post the job free.