NHL Central Scouting celebrates 50th anniversary through stories, 'brotherhood'

It was April and the full-time evaluators of NHL Central Scouting had just wrapped up a full day discussing blue-chip players eligible for the 2012 NHL Draft from inside a hotel conference room in Vaughan, Ontario.

After learning the wait at a local steakhouse for a table of seven would be 45 minutes, Hockey Hall of Famer and former NHL Central Scouting director-turned adviser Jim Gregory took out his cell phone while sitting in the driver's seat of his white Cadillac and began pounding numbers.

This writer was sitting in the back seat and will never forget what turned out to be a memorable 10-second conversation.

"Yeah … Sal? ... You know who this is, right?" Gregory asked. "That's right (laughter). Can you accommodate a party of seven?

"OK, we'll be there (hangs up)."

Gregory turned to us and said, with a big smile: "OK gang, let's go. You're going to love this place."

The small Italian eatery, where every dish was homemade, was incredible. The only television in the place was tuned to a hockey game and the cooks came out, one by one, to talk shop with "Mr. Gregory."

These are the stories you never hear about when it comes to NHL Central Scouting but happen to be most memorable to anyone associated with the bureau for any length of time. I remember asking Gregory after that dinner to sum up his 48 years of NHL service in some capacity, including 10 as director:

"When my son [David] was going to public school, the teacher asked him, 'Does your dad work?' He said 'No, he's in hockey.' And he had it right. That sums it up," said Gregory, who died Oct. 30, 2019.

NHL Central Scouting is celebrating its 50th anniversary this season, so NHL.com decided to reach out to former and current scouts, as well as people who played a role for the bureau over the years, for their memories (listed alphabetically with years served).

Jack Barzee, 1985-89; 1993-2012

"Working at Central was a brotherhood. It's like playing high school hockey and winning the state championship with your brothers for life. Joe Sakic, Keith Tkachuk and Mike Modano were my favorite players to scout. Sakic stood out immediately in warmups. Tkachuk was a big boy with deceptive speed. Modano was tall, thin, gangly and could fly. When I looked at a player, I wanted to learn about his hands, his feet and what was going on in his head ... how much jam he had, his competitiveness. Sakic, Tkachuk and Modano were over the top with that."

Jack Button, 1975-79 (as told by his son Tod Button, Calgary Flames director of amateur scouting)

"The thing I learned from dad was that process matters. Decisions don't have to be made hastily as we have all year to gather info and process it. Work ethic. Preparation. There is more to the player then what you see on the ice. Never stop learning or evolving and use and trust your people. The amount of administrative work that Central does to make the Scouting Combine, and other events as well, go off as smoothly as they do is so time consuming that it takes a lot off the team's plate. Teams will always have their differences on what is important and may evaluate differently, but the Combine and data they generate is a highly useful base to start from."

Jean-Francois Damphousse, 2019-present

"I'm proud to say I've worked with legends such as Peter Sullivan, who is a mentor and great friend. Peter had a dry sense of humor and there wasn't a bad day working and traveling with him. His experience and knowledge really helped me when I first started in the scouting business, which involves a lot of driving. There are good days and rougher days on the road. A couple years ago, me and Joey Tenute got stuck in the snow at 1 a.m. driving back from Swift Current. We were about one mile from the hotel but stuck at the highway exit. We each took turns to shovel, push the car out of that mess. Funny now but not funny at the moment when it was freezing cold. Going into my first year at Central, (New York Rangers forward) Alexis Lafreniere was the top prospect. I got to see him dominate the QMJHL; not a bad way to start my scouting career."

Troy Dumville, 2012-19

"My fondest memory is working with some great people who were passionate about doing a good job despite not having skin in the game. Driving through snowstorms to make sure rankings were accurate and reports were filed. There were lots of laughs at meetings and lots of great discussions at the hotel bar after games. The funniest memory I have was the way Greg Rajanen would come to meetings with a list of 50 Minnesota kids he wanted on the list. He treated them like they were his kids, and he was passionate about his area."

Chris Edwards, 1990-2015

"Traveling across North America to watch hockey with such great people is by far the best part of my time with Central and working at the podium for several NHL drafts when Jim Gregory needed a break was the highlight of my career. I told this story when E.J. McGuire died and still think it's great. There was a time in a hotel that E.J. and I were staying in Moose Jaw when internet service was not reliable. E.J. figured out that if he propped his door open that the service would improve, so that's what he did. He left his door propped open for seven days. He would ask me to drive him out several miles so he could run back to the hotel with the wind ... it was minus-20 or colder and he would still want to run and wearing shorts.

"E.J. would keep his wallet in a bag in the trunk of his car. It was full of every type of merchandise you could imagine ... pucks, hats, sweaters, team pins. The idea was when (not if) he was stopped for speeding he could get the cop around back of the car, talk hockey and offer some stuff. E.J. would tell the cop stories of his time with the Blackhawks, Flyers, Senators. I can't tell you how many tickets I've seen him talk his way out of. E.J. could talk a dog off a rump roast."

Gary Eggleston, 1981-2012 (as told by David Gregory)

"What an incredible person [Eggleston] was. I think it was the way Central was envisioned ... the amount of passion and how much every scout put into it, but Gary was as thorough and detailed as anybody could ever be. He used the resources he had in the Boston, New England area to make sure no stone was left unturned. He was so good to me because when I first started at Central, I didn't necessarily have a territory. I was kind of going all over the place. I was involved with filming as well, but Gary was such a great mentor to me. He and Jack Barzee helped me learn the business of what Central was, how it worked and why it was important."

Jan Egert, 2013-15

"My favorite memory at Central was the post-meeting dinners, usually held at Grappa (Etobicoke, Ontario). Those are moments I often reflect back on with a smile on my face. I always enjoyed the professional relationships, but the personal relationships were even better. The first time I crossed paths with Central's Peter Sullivan was the scout's room at the Kitchener Auditorium. I was in my early 20s ... just breaking into the industry. 'Sully' sat down at my table and put his scouting book down, which had an SC Langnau Tigers sticker on it. I asked Sully about his connection to Langnau and I thought his eyes were going to pop out. That, out of the blue, this random 20-year-old recognized that logo. A few years later when I joined Central, one of the first things Sully brought up was that memory and that made me feel comfortable right away."

Jack Gerien, 2006-22

"There's no clearer example of the importance of Central Scouting's value to our teams than the NHL Combine. Over the years this event has risen from the lower levels of a hotel to a large-scale convention center, to its recent years at the (LECOM) Harborcenter in Buffalo. I also have worked with the Central Scouting back-office administrators, like (senior director) Luke McGoey and (senior manager) Steve Rachkowski. I have seen the extraordinary effort and commitment that they have demonstrated in ensuring that operations and information flow correctly and in a timely manner to our scouts and teams, inclusive of schedule changes, injury updates and a wealth of other information. In my time with Central, I have had the privilege of working with so many legendary scouts who have always been willing to broaden my hockey education and accepted me into their community. Over its 50-year history, the NHL Central Scouting has evolved and adapted in the same way our game has."

David Gregory, 2002-present

"I loved when my dad would enter the room when we were in the middle of meetings. I mean, this was his baby in a lot of ways, so it was great to see the respect the whole staff gave him. It always made me feel great. He'd sit beside me and ask questions; just the fact I got to do that with my dad is a pretty incredible feeling. The other memory I have was after [McGuire] took over. I remember before the meeting started, he said, 'Listen, I'm changing where you sit. I'm putting you between Barzee and Eggleston because someone has to be a buffer,' so I had Gary in my right ear and Jack in my left ear for several years, which was an honor. The meetings have become way more civil over the course of time than they were with the arguments and the fighting that went on for where players should be. It was awfully fun to be in the middle of those two guys handling the United States' side of things."

Jim Gregory, 1979-88 (as told to NHL.com in 2012)

"During the mid-'70s, while structuring our scouting department for the Maple Leafs, I was fortunate to be associated with Dallas Cowboys general manager Tex Schramm, who introduced me to a company in Palo Alto, California, called Optimum Systems. I made a trip there to talk to them about a way for us to improve our scouting ... they were the vehicle for the football scouting. The Maple Leafs had a farm team in Dallas, and Chicago and Toronto co-sponsored a team there. They explained to me how using the computer could help scouting. While managing the Maple Leafs, we got involved in the program and I talked to Scotty Bowman and Keith Allen, who were receptive. I talked to the managers of the teams who weren't involved and said we should do this as a League and put it in so that the basic stuff is all done because it saves so much time. If you could imagine, 21 teams at the time, and when the draft is going, you have to check birthdays and stats of so many players. To have so many teams doing that when one (computer program) would be enough made a lot of sense."

Al Jensen, 2001-present

"I remember my first year when Jack Barzee took me under his wing and having to go out on my first scouting trip out West with Harold Snepsts. He was the nicest guy in the world, and he made me feel so comfortable. Sidney Crosby was the best player I scouted. His leg strength was top end, and he was a phenomenal skater; guys had a hard time checking him. Marc-Andre Fleury was the best goalie I ever scouted, a phenomenal competitor. I remember the first time seeing him as an underage player with Cape Breton and thinking, 'Oh, this kid's going to be good.'"

B.J. MacDonald, 2006-14

"It was always interesting to see how the different leagues held their status from year to year and some great arguments ensued but always at the forefront was the integrity of the list. One funny story was the night me and Chris Bordeleau were coming back from a game in Owen Sound. It was snowing so hard you could barely see where the road was. He was driving and I had my head out the window on the driver's side telling him to turn left instead of going in a ditch every 30 seconds. We finally came out of it after about 10 miles to crystal-clear skies back to Toronto. That was always a hairy trip."

Dan Marr, 2011-present

"One of the most impressive and satisfying aspects of being involved with Central Scouting is the production of the ranking lists. The professional respect given and required to reach consensus amongst a group of hard-working, strong-minded scouts is truly impressive as each individual scout must listen and accept others' opinions even when they are not convinced, yet all are humble and respectful knowing that the group ranking is always better than any individual list."

E.J. McGuire, 2005-11 (as told by his wife Terry McGuire)

"E.J. didn't really talk about work too much when he was home, but he spoke often of the team at Central Scouting, and he was very confident that they were all possibly better at their jobs than he was. He took a lot of scouting trips with Chris Edwards, and he enjoyed his time with him. He spent some time with Jim Gregory, too, and he thought very highly of him and appreciated his knowledge of hockey. I think the most rewarding aspect of his job was working with scouts from all over. He was thrilled that he got paid to watch hockey."

Greg Rajanen, 2012-22

"One of the huge tasks we undertook prior to the season starting was getting the official heights and weights of players in our area. I was in Waterloo one year at an exhibition game and was getting heights and weights for both Waterloo and Sioux City of the United States Hockey League. I was almost done with Sioux City when I saw one player moving toward me and he was walking kind of funny. I realized when he stood on the height device that he had a puck inside each sock, under his heel on each foot. Some of his teammates were hanging around to watch. I made sure that they heard me say 5-foot-8 when the device said 5-9. The player looked at me speechless and stomped off while his mates had a good chuckle."

Goran Stubb, 1983-present

"One of many scouting memories I have was during a trip to Tver, a city on the highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia. There are no hotels in Tver and scouts stayed at a truck driver's motel outside town. It was a cold and rather ugly place, but one morning I went out for a walk with my Czechia friends Roman Havluj, Jiri Hrdina (three-time Stanley Cup champion) and Vaclav Nedomansky. One truck in the parking lot was a Czech-registered truck. The driver jumped out and came straight to Hrdina and Nedomansky. 'I must be dreaming. What are the odds I'd meet my two childhood hockey heroes in the middle of nowhere,' he said. The poor truck driver had been stuck at the motel's parking lot for three days with a broken truck and no money. He didn't want to leave his truck, fearing someone might steal the cargo. My Czech friends lent him money and helped him contact a garage in Moscow. Nedomansky and Hdrina even got their money back."

Peter Sullivan, 1996-2023

"Scouting was very similar to playing for me. It's your teammates when you're playing and my colleagues here from the past to the present. One funny story I remember was when Terry Caffery was part of the staff. Caffery was Chicago's third pick overall in 1966. Anyway, we're in the middle of the meeting and 'Caff' stands up and starts imitating some scouts. There wasn't a person in the room that couldn't stop laughing. We were laughing out so loud that Jim Gregory came rushing into the room and said, 'What the [heck] is going on in here?' Then Jim saw Caffery standing, doing his imitations and even he started laughing. He was imitating everybody; it was no-holds barred. The funny part of all this is Jim came into the room to calm us down because he was getting phone calls from in the building that Central Scouting was making too much noise ... we were laughing and having a great time. That was a great example of how we got along."

Jukka-Pekka Vuorinen, 2021-present

"I have experience with players' paths for more than 40 years from their start in youth national teams up to their retirement, having seen Teemu Selanne and Pavel Bure starting at their first under-16 aged national team games. It's always a new story and learning lesson who could be the player that NHL teams want to draft."

Janne Vuorinen, 2005-present

"My biggest memories have been the friendships created, especially Goran Stubb, who has mentored and trusted me so well over the years. There have been many great players scouting but Aleksander Barkov (Florida Panthers) is first on my list. He was just so complete already in his draft year without many flaws in his game. As a person, he was humble and a bit shy, but on the ice, always a big leader who was a great example of how to lead games. Victor Hedman (Tampa Bay Lightning) was a great physical presence and leader, and Mikael Granlund (Dallas Stars) was the first great prospect from Finland in a number of years."

John Williams, 2014-present

"The one thing I always found funny was when (current Central Scouting director) Dan Marr, who isn't known by our group to be the funniest guy in the world, gave Peter Sullivan a one-pound Snickers bar. You hear of those commercials of how Snickers calms or makes people feel better and Sully, being the senior member of the staff, had a bit of a reputation for being a little grumpy at times, so Dan gave him this huge Snickers bar to start the meeting. I'll also never forget my first scouting trip for Central in 2014-15. I went to see Jack Eichel first, and the next night saw Connor McDavid. Evaluating these types of players is something that always appealed to me. It's always amazing to see how good players are."