In the past year, I’ve gone through more changes in my life than I had in the previous five. Since last May alone, I got my dream job running the hockey division of a sports agency, graduated from law school, took and passed the Bar Exam, moved back to Chicago, opened up a law practice, started authoring this column, met some great people, and watched more hockey than most Americans do in their entire lives. My ride thus far has been nothing short of insane – spending most weekends in my car driving from one rink to the next, running on next to no sleep, and practically living off the revitalizing nectar of the coffee bean. To be honest, if I recapped everything that’s happened in my life since I started contributing to SAB, I’d be seriously testing your attention span as readers. So although I’ve always been willing to share details of my personal life and work outside the agency (i.e. my immigration legal work), I’m going to keep my highlight reel focused on the sports side of my life – in the end that’s what this column is all about. Alright, well get yo popcorn ready and here we go!

August 1, 2009. At this point, I have one client – Matt Szypura. I grew up playing club hockey with Matt and he had recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point. While at UW, Matt had played four years of NCAA DIII Ice Hockey and was looking to take his game to the pro level. He knew I had gotten a job working with a large sports agency and asked if I could help. I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I started calling teams in the SPHL and CHL, but I knew getting him on a team wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. Knowing most coaches aren’t going to know who Matt is, I start putting together a player resume for Matt. Basically all it contains is a profile picture, his career stats from Juniors and College, and a player biography – nothing too flashy but the final product is professional and gets coaches what they want without wasting their time.

September 26, 2009. After getting him into the Texas Brahmas (CHL) camp, Matt separates his shoulder. If I thought getting him a roster spot was tough now, how bad would it be now that he couldn’t skate for a few weeks?

October 28, 2009. Matt signs a Standard Player Contract (SPC) with the Chi-Town Shooters of the All-American Hockey League (AAHL). It’s not ultimately where we wanted him to be, but I knew we had to get Matt on the ice if he wanted a chance of playing at a higher level.

October 30, 2009. Matt plays in his firs professional game. Despite having a pretty good performance, Matt goes -1 and the Shooter lose to the Chicago Blaze 3-2.

November 7, 2009. While scouting at the Bauer International Invite here in Chicago, I have a great conversation with a coach of a team that has three players I’ve had my eye on. Sean (one of the kids I’m currently advising) is one of them, and the coach introduces us. We spent a few minutes talking but it was late and Sean’s team had an early game the next morning. I attended their game the next day and although they lost, I got a better opportunity to talk with some of the kids about who I am and what my company does.

December 13, 2009. My phone rings and it’s Matt – he’s getting called up to the Dayton Gems of the IHL. Finally, it seems as though his strong play on the ice is getting noticed.

December 27, 2009. While in Toronto for the annual Marlies Holiday Classic, I have a sit-down with Sean and Chris to discuss the future direction of Sean’s hockey career. Sean wants to play D1 college somewhere, so right off the bat we know there can’t be any agreements between myself and Sean’s family (remember those NCAA eligibility rules). I really like the way Sean plays and he seems like a great kid off the ice, so I let his family know that I’d be happy to help advise them through the recruiting process. Chris tells me that they like the dedication and drive that they’ve seen from me up to this point, and he gives me the green light to start distributing Sean’s statistics to U.S. college teams.

January 8-10, 2010. The International Silver Stick Finals are being played up in Port Huron, MI. Some of the rinks are over an hour away from one another, so I’ve been spending a lot of time in my car. I have some good meetings with a few parents and players about advising them, and by the end of the weekend it looks as though I’ve got a solid lead on a kid named Colin.

January 30-31, 2010. Shattuck St. Mary’s has sent their U16 team to the Chicago area to face off against both the Chicago Mission and Team Illinois. I get the chance to see some great games and players, and while I’d at one of the games, I meet Oren Koules – the then-owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning. His son plays for SSM and he was able to find the time to fly up for the weekend games. We talked a few times over the weekend and he seems like a really nice guy – hopefully we’ll be crossing paths professionally in the not-too-distant future.

February 11, 2010. After hearing that a potential 2010 NHL Draft pick is interested in signing with me, we go out to dinner with his host family to discuss business. It seems as though things are going very well and that we’re on the same page with how and where we think his game should continue to develop. At this point I know I need to remain very visible and hope that my hard work will pay off.

February 12-14, 2010. Another weekend trip – this time to catch Matt’s game in Dayton and an ECHL game up in Toledo, OH. Not as much scouting for me as usual, but getting to see my buddy who coaches for the Toledo Walleye could be good for Matt and/or other future clients and their careers.

February 21, 2010. I receive the call I’ve been waiting for. It’s Brian’s host mother, Nicole, and after a week and a half of making phone calls and sending out emails to OHL and NHL clubs, Brian’s family is impressed with what they’ve seen from me and want me to represent their son. I already know that Brian is comfortable with me representing him, and in getting his parents on board, it looks like I just cleared the last major hurdle in getting him signed.

February 26, 2010. It’s been a busy couple weeks, but my company is extremely happy with the way the Hockey Division is coming together. While I’m in Indianapolis with three of my co-workers, the founder of our company lets me know that they’re promoting me…not a bad start to the weekend.

March 1, 2010. Brian officially signs with our firm. I should note that I’m still using a fake name, but I may be revealing his true identity soon – I just have to run it by Brian himself and get his permission.

March 5-7, 2010. This past weekend was yet another busy but productive one. After actually finding some time to spend socially Friday night, I drove up to Detroit where I’d be staying for the night. Unfortunately I was only able to get a couple hours of sleep and then it was up again early on Saturday – the qualifying rounds of the Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA) Championships were being played in Guelph, Ontario and I still had a three-hour drive ahead of me.

I arrived at the rink around 11am and they were just dropping the puck in the first game. Sean’s team skated away with an easy victory and after losing a game the day before, it seemed as though they’d be back on track to advance through the qualifiers. It was around 2pm EST, though, when I received an upsetting call from Nicole – she wanted to give me a heads up that an agent from another firm had been calling Brian and his family everyday. I knew that this guy had been calling last week, so just this past Wednesday I left him a voicemail letting him know that Brian had signed with us and asking him to stop contacting Brian and/or his family. Apparently he wasn’t getting the message (both literally and figuratively). I tracked down his cell number, but not surprisingly he didn’t answer that either. We’ll have to see how this develops over the next few days but needless to say I’m not happy about the situation.

With six months in the bag, who knows what’s in store for the next 26 weeks? Hopefully by the time I’m typing up my year in review, I’ll have Brian heading towards a successful NHL career with some of my other advisees not too far behind. If my work to this point as taught me anything, though, it’s that in this business, the only thing you can expect is the unexpected.

Before I leave you for the week, I want to take a second to once again thank you all for your support over this time we’ve spent together. With my busy schedule and long weekends, sometimes the last thing I feel like doing is sitting down at my computer for a few hours to type this up. However, your thoughtful and encouraging posts, emails, and phone calls truly drive me to get this column to you week in and week out. While I certainly have gained a lot from this whole experience, “Rookie Duties” is really for you and I’m just happy to help in any way that I can. Please keep your comments and questions coming and I’ll continue to do my best to address them each week.

These next few days will be spent once again burning up the phone lines trying to get some leads on NHL scouts and their schedules. I’ve got some solid leads already but there’s still a handful of clubs that have been difficult to get a hold of. This upcoming weekend, at least one scout that I spoke with will be coming down to see Brian skate and we should have a few more in line for the next weekend as well. I hope you all have a great productive week ahead of you and until next Monday…it’s time to hit the showers.

While the Bauer Invite officially kicked off last Thursday night at Seven Bridges Ice Arena in Woodridge, IL, I was out of town Wednesday and Thursday and didn’t get back to Chicago until around 8:40pm Friday night – and that’s where it all began. I knew the Soviet Wings 95s were going to be playing just miles from my home at 9:25 that night so I had to hustle. Fortunately, as with most tournaments, the rinks were running a little behind and so I was able to make it with time to spare. As the Zamboni was working its magic on the ice, I began to browse through the stats that I had printed off on both the Wings and their nemesis for the night, the Barrie (Ontario) Colts. I noticed that in the Wings’ first game of the tournament, a 2-1 victory, both their goals were scored by the same player – Artem Prokhorov. I decided to pay special attention to him and see if maybe the last game was a fluke – especially since when Artem stepped on the ice I noticed that he was also one of the smallest players on either team. After three periods and three goals for Prokhorov, I was convinced that this kid definitely had talent. Artem seemed to be a very fluid skater with good vision and excellent hands. There was one issue, however – his size. What makes things difficult, though, is that at the Bantam Minor level you’re dealing with 14-year-olds. At ages that young, you never know when a growth spurt could occur.

Besides age, though, a change in scenery could also make a huge difference in his muscle development. Over the past few years I’ve noticed a major flaw in the Russian amateur hockey system – lack of proper nutrition. In many cases it’s merely a monetary issue – most families in Russia can’t afford to buy the large amount of calories required by athletes competing at such a high level. And as for nutritional supplements such as protein powders and weight gainers that have become commonplace in North America  – I can assure you that for the most part such items are definitely not in the Russian family budget. I haven’t heard much of Russian amateur clubs providing nutritional assistance to their athletes, but it’s certainly something that, if properly implemented, could make a huge difference. It’s definitely one thing I plan on focusing on with all my Russian clients.

Anyway, I apologize for that digression. To get to my point, while I was impressed with some of what I saw from the young Russian squad, I needed to see more to be convinced. In addition, while the Wings handled the Colts by a final score of 6-3, there were a few players from Barrie that were very strong players and I made sure to make note of them.

So after a nice relaxing first night of play, Saturday morning started off with games at 7:00am at the Darien Sportsplex in Darien, IL. Knowing I needed to take advantage of having this much talent so close to my home, I managed to pull myself out of bed around 5:50am and head over to “the Plex” as we used to call it back when I was playing in these tournaments. I should note that one nice thing about the organization of the Bauer Invite was the selection of the facilities. Each age level had their games limited to basically two or three rinks which were close to each other in proximity. Thus, if you wanted to follow one age group, getting from game-to-game wasn’t too difficult. The 95s were playing in the three rinks closest to my home and the Wings were also a part of that bracket so I decided to follow them. Another factor in my choice to stick with the 95s was that I figured most of the scouts and agents would be lurking around the U16 games. For the most part, I heard that my theory was correct.

After watching my first game of the day, I wasn’t very impressed. Luckily, I decided to stick it out and see the next two teams. During that game I was able to notice three players on another team from Ontario that seemed to stand out among the rest of the kids on the ice. All three were forwards, but each had a slightly different style of play. While the flashiest of the bunch was also the smallest, I was extremely impressed by how “big” he actually played. At the same time, the other two were very solid physically and finished every check, but also had excellent vision on the ice. One final thing that really put it over the top with me was that all three players were gritty – each skated every stride like it was their last of the game. In my opinion, character can never be overlooked. If a kid’s constantly busting his butt, I’ll take him any day of the week over a slightly more skilled player that lacks a good work ethic. I glanced through my tournament program and noticed that the team’s next game wouldn’t be until just after 6:00pm back at Darien. I noted the three players in my notebook and highlighted their game on my schedule.

Next up – Soviet Wings vs. L.A. Selects at the International Ice Center in Romeoville, IL. The Selects are one of the top hockey programs in the States, so I didn’t’ want to miss this matchup. Physically, the Russians couldn’t hang with the bigger, stronger, and faster L.A. club. I was disappointed with the 6-0 score but really liked what I saw from a few of the Selects players. Before this tournament started, I decided that I wasn’t going to approach any players directly – I really felt that with kids this young, it just isn’t appropriate. Instead, I decided to find the head coach and chat it up with him for a bit. After a short talk, he let me know that he basically had an agent who he worked with and so he really couldn’t help me out. To be honest, I was just happy he decided to be upfront and not yank my chain around.

After the Wings/Selects, I headed back to Darien and met up with fellow SportsAgentBlog.com contributor and “Rookie Duties” follower Ryan Ballard. We grabbed a quick lunch and talked a little puck, but then it was right back to work scouting in the rinks.  We were able to catch some good games and noticed a few talented players but nothing that really jumped out at me.

From there it was over to my third rink of the day, the Rocket Ice Arena in Bolingbrook, IL, for the Wings second game of the day. This time they faced the Cleveland Barons, and while the score was much closer, the Wings once again looked flat and fell 3-2. Since registering six points in the Wings first two games, Prokhorov had been held to just one assist in the last two. In addition, with the Selects’ fourth straight win in Round Robin play, the Wings had been officially eliminated from competition.

By the time I got back to Darien for Ontario club’s second match of the day, I was completely exhausted but excited to catch the game I’d been waiting for all afternoon. Once again, the three boys I had noticed before played extremely well and their team was able to pull off a victory, which put them through to the quarterfinals. I had done a little small talking with some of the family members during the contest but I didn’t want to really flaunt the fact that I was an agent scouting their kids (although I’m sure it was fairly obvious) – parents can get protective when it comes to agents and rightfully so.

I knew I needed to talk with this coach at some point, and I decided to stake out the team’s locker room. As I caught him walking out, I first congratulated him on a solid win. Although he immediately seemed like a very approachable, friendly guy, he wasn’t extremely pleased with his team’s performance that night. Apparently the team had played games Wednesday and Thursday as well, bringing their total number of games played in the previous 72-hour period to six. When you include a nine-hour drive to Chicago in the same block of time, a little fatigue is certainly understandable. After talking hockey for a few minutes the coach asked which players I had been looking at. He agreed that the three I was most interested in were his three strongest players and told me I should see them skate when they aren’t as tired. I offered the coach my business card and he immediately asked for a few extras to give to some of his kids. Obviously I agreed and gave him all that I had left from the day. That’s when he did what I didn’t expect – he asked if I wanted to meet the three players I had been scouting. At first I was reluctant (or at least I wanted to appear that way) because I didn’t want to stress them out with anxiety the night before a big game. I was never a talented enough player to have agents coming after me at age 14, but I can imagine that while it may be exciting, the pressure that comes with the attention can be overwhelming. After the coach assured me that these kids would only be thrilled knowing that an agent had singled them out, I decided to talk with them for a bit. The coach pulled all three kids out of the locker room and I spoke with them as a group. I kept the conversation light and told them to just have fun and keep playing well. Their coach had suggested a few dates on their schedule that would be good for me to visit their town and watch them play at their home rink and so I also explained to the three boys that I’d probably be making a trip up to Ontario to see them play later in the season. While this is certainly true, I really just wanted them to know that their next game wouldn’t be a make or break performance. Like I said, the last thing I wanted to do was stress these kids out.

After talking a bit longer with the Canadian coach, I headed back to Romeoville to catch the rest of the games for the night. Nothing really blew me away, but I was still feeling pretty good about my encounter with the Ontario club just a few hours earlier. Their next game was scheduled for 7:00am Sunday, so it was going to be another early day. I spent Saturday night doing a little research on the Ontario boys and unfortunately didn’t get to sleep until about 1:30am.

On my way over to the Romeoville rink Sunday morning, I debated whether or not I should bring a “Box-o-Joe” from Dunkin’ Donuts to the rink. I’d been to enough tournaments to know the parents probably didn’t get to bed early Saturday night and it might be a nice way to get to know them. On the other hand, I was worried that buying coffee for everybody would be a little too much. In the end, I bought the coffee and shared it with a handful of the parents while others were a little hesitant. The coach also grabbed a cup while we talked briefly before the game. Although my contribution might not have gotten the reviews that I had hoped for, bringing it certainly didn’t seem to hurt and may have only made me stand out in the parents’ minds a little more.  In most cases that’s a good thing – a few of the parents did in fact thank me for my hospitality.

Unfortunately, while my three potential advisees had another strong outing, their team fell in the quarterfinals. After the game, I was able to talk a little more with the coach and parents and I even got the chance to watch some of the remaining games with two of the three boys before they headed home. While I didn’t want to ask for their contact information, I made sure they had my card and told them to call if they needed any help with anything. I also let them know that when I get my Ontario trip figured out, I’d get a hold of their coach and make sure the word gets passed along to them. It’s funny how I only had met the kids twice for a total of about 30 minutes but it was sad to see them go.

To top off the weekend, I caught a semifinal match of the 95 AAA Bracket (to that point I had been following only the 95 AAA Elites), and finally the 95 Elites Championship between the L.A. Selects and the Westchester (NY) Express. While the final game wasn’t exactly a nail-biter (L.A. won 7-1), I was able to meet with two other coaches and get some positive responses back from them. While most of these leads might not pan out to anything, getting our hockey division (and myself for that matter) exposure could never hurt.  You never know what breaks you might catch.

Mr. Smith is only one of the many amazing names that will be in Chicago at the conference. Some of the other great names include Jeff Gewirtz, Senior VP and General Counsel of NETS Basketball/ Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment. Stephanie Varvadas, Managing Attorney for Nike Inc. Donald M. Fehr, Executive Director and General Counsel for the MLBPA, Richard J. Berthelsen, General Counsel for the NFLPA,  along with Professors Richard Karcher Director of Law and Professor Florida Coastal School of Law Center for Law and Sports, Vared Yakovee Professor at USC Gould School of Law and Editor-in-chief of Entertainement & Sports Lawyer, Gary R. Roberts from Indiana University School of Law and Gabe Feldman, Director of the Tulane Univesity Sports Law Program to name only a few.