If you were to compile a list of the most intriguing and alluring professions (outside of being a highly paid pro athlete), what might be called "dream jobs," you might include a ski instructor at Vail, a photographer for Hugh Heffner, perhaps a road test driver for Porsche. My list would include being paid to travel around the world to watch hockey, with rinks as my office, as a scout. On conference calls I'd be asked to discuss slick-skating Slovaks and mischief-makers from Moose Jaw.

In this role I could envision myself shamelessly dropping the names of athletes and locales, annoying my fellow air travelers in their comparatively mundane business comings and goings with "Once I land in Stockholm I'll race over to national team headquarters to obtain a progress report on Jergen . . . for I understand he's tearing up the Elite League." This likely explains why I am not a hockey scout; at times I lack subtlety.

Of course, our perceptions of these professions are premised on myth and an outsider's necessarily flawed vantage. When you actually get a chance to talk to someone in them, markedly different realities are detailed for you. This was my experience recently in an entirely unplanned and altogether fortuitous exchange I had with a full-time NHL scout. From the moment I confirmed his identity I knew I wanted to pick his hockey head clean of its "a season in the life of" experiences and analyses, for his is a line of work long shrouded behind the scenes, in mystery even, by design.

In this scout I had not only a fertile and fruitful information source but an emblem of hockey's most impassioned: you don't go into hockey scouting because the loading gig at Home Depot didn't come through, you scout -- necessarily making unfathomable sacrifices on your personal life -- because you possess in inexhaustable fire for life on ice, he told me. He didn't merely answer my questions in rich detail but created compositions with my readers' perceived curiosity foremost in mind. He asked of me only that I preserve his anonymity and that of his NHL employer. I happily obliged.

He is based in the U.S. He covers a major region of the country -- its colleges and prominent high school programs. He is responsible for all of the teams and players in one of college hockey's power conferences. And at times he is also tasked with scouting junior hockey and the occasional professional game.
pucksandbooks: Most hockey fans have an impression that the life of an NHL scout has to be pretty much the closest thing to Heaven on Earth as far as careers go. I mean, what could be better than getting paid to watch terrific hockey! Jet planes, morning skates, and hotels with embroidered bathrobes. Firstly, how accurate are our general impressions of this career, and would you identify for OFB readers both your favorite and least favorite aspects of it?

NHLScout: I love when people talk about the glamour of this job. Let me make it clear from the start that I love my job. There is literally nothing I would rather be doing in the world. As you said, I get paid to watch hockey -- what could be better? I'm sure people will skip this disclaimer and read what follows as me complaining, but that's not my intention. I just want to strip the "glamour" idea from the job. Scouting is a grind. The glamour is for athletes, GMs, and some coaches. The scouts are the faceless drones who do the grunt work without the public recognition.

I'm one of the younger scouts, and single. On a "home" week for me, I'll spend Tuesday through Sunday driving to games, watching games, and sitting at home filing game reports. I frequently drive 5 hours to see a game, then drive 5 back (through snow, rain, ice, whatever else) when the game ends. That means I'll leave my house around noon on Friday, and get home around 3 a.m. Saturday. I haven't had a Friday or Saturday night off since the last weekend in August. When I'm on the road, it's long drives, small towns, and hotel rooms. Ever been to Medicine Hat, Alberta? Or Sioux City, Iowa? Or some random town I can't spell in Latvia? NHL scouts have.

And this isn't NHL hockey we get to watch every night. I've seen high school games where one player is a borderline 7th round pick, and the rest of the kids can't even skate. It's painful to watch and hard to focus -- you end up trying to find attractive women in the crowd, or staring at the clock as the minutes count down. Scouting is a time consuming, exhausting job, especially for wives and children. I'm incredibly lucky to not be married at this point -- I don't know how the wives are able to do it. Their husbands are gone for weeks at a time, work strange hours, and have very little time off. Honestly, the toughest people in hockey are the wives and children. It's amazing what they have to deal with.

My favorite part of the job is hard to choose. I love the community. Scouts are a tight-knit group of men who do their best to look out for each other. Older scouts helping rookies with things like hotels, directions, back doors to rinks, etc. Rookies driving the older guys while they catch up on some rest. Going and talking to the athletes and coaches and finding out information. Hearing the stories of guys who have scouted for 50 years ("I remember seeing Bobby Orr back in juniors. One game . . . ") never ceases to entertain me. I love the first moment of every day when I walk into a rink, and feel the cold, and smell the sweat, and just feel at home. I love those infrequent games where you see something special -- a player you just know will be a star, or a goal you've never seen before, or a great fight. I love that my job changes every day.

My least favorite part of the job is just the travel and lack of free time, which gets old pretty fast. For every trip to a great city like New York or Boston or Madison, Wis., there's the trip to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, or some small town in Western Canada, or a place in Russia where no one else speaks English. I don't really have time for a social life because I'm working every night. I also wouldn't mind if women were more impressed by the job title. When I get a rare night off and go out to a bar, I usually end up surrounded by male hockey fans who are asking me questions, while the girls of the group walk off to find a doctor or a cop.