Video vs. Live Viewings and Body Language

Another element touched on by all 5 scouts, was the importance of viewings or how many times they were able to watch a player. Scout 1 emphasized how easy it can be to do so:

“I watch two games of him [player prospect] in the morning. Takes me an hour. Right? Yeah, it's not a big chunk out of your time. But over time, you build up your viewings, and you build up your feel for what type of player he is, right, and I think that makes just makes a huge difference. Like, you really you go in and you're really confident in where you have these guys, and you know, it, maybe you won't be maybe you aren't right, you know, when you find out three, four or five years down the road, but at least you're confident in your opinion when you're at those meetings or when it comes draft time. Whereas if you've, and I mean there are guys where I know one guy who was a head scout of an organization, in Elias Pettersson's draft year, he never saw him live at all. He saw him on TV on world juniors, and he didn't have very good world juniors. Like to me, especially as your head scout, you should be fired.” (Scout 1, Director of Amateur Scouting).

The more a scout watched a player the more confident they became in their evaluation. Scout 1 described an experience where an NHL Head Scout never watched Elias Pettersson, who was considered a top prospect, play live. This is important to note as it shows the negative side of confidence and ego in the hockey industry. The viewings should help provide the confidence to make informed decisions and limit mistakes, as discussed by Scout 5:

“You look at other players that you're watching, and you see, sometimes you need to watch them more, or sometimes you see this real jump up and growth with a player, and it doesn't mean he wasn't good in October or November, it just means that you might not have been as confident or as comfortable at that point in time. And that's why you got to continue to watch and evaluate. I always say, evaluation at any level is never static. It's always changing, and you got to be on top of it. So again, if you go in, I don't think you have to force yourself to say, oh, this is the last time I'm seeing this kid, or, boy, I'm coming in here and I got to be here and there tomorrow. It's about okay, we got to go back [and watch them again] . . . And when you're dealing in the first round, and the second round, and the higher parts of the draft, you got to really focus your energies and efforts in those areas to get comfortable at that confident in your assessment.” (Scout 5, General Manager).

Scout 4 discussed the importance of viewings and how that translated to his approach:

“Last year, I watched every single game, we had probably with 10 goalies on our draft list last year, and I watched every single one of their games and broke down all their shots against. So, it was about, I don't know, 3500 shots.” (Scout 4, Goalie Scout).

Viewings are a key indicator that demonstrates the overall performance of a player as it instills confidence in scouts, allowing them to make their own decision and therefore, ideally, not conforming to the consensus opinion. The more viewings a scout has, the more confident they become, as Scout 5 stated. As this becomes a clear inefficiency in the scouting world, the question becomes how to overcome this concern. Scout 5 also discussed a method they used to further combat having a consensus on a player. (This was discussed in another article but ties them together a little better).

“But it was that fear [of not selecting a player that others deem as a good pick]. So, what we ended up developing Hayden was what we call the right-hand list. Players we knew would get drafted high that didn't meet our criteria that we weren't going to draft to avoid exactly what I talked about.” (Scout 5).

Instilling that confidence is important but being able to deploy a method that directly addresses the issue is just as, if not more, important.

In recent years, the advancement of technology has benefited scouts, giving them the ability to view more players over video, rather than having to watch each individual in person. This becomes a more accessible way for scouts to watch prospects and provides a greater opportunity for player viewings. Scout 1 explains:

“[I]t becomes more important getting those viewings in, you can't get away from those, and, you know, with, with the implementation of video, that's where you can really, maybe get a leg up on the competition by putting in the extra viewings and so that you're confident in your assessment and projection of these guys.” (Scout 1).

Video scouting is an asset to these scouts as it provides a competitive advantage and confidence, but it does have its limitations. The limitations of video scouting was another prominent theme among the NHL scouts; specifically, examining player behaviour away from the play that cannot be captured on video, such as body language.

“I mean, you never get away with the, you know, you can't overlook the value of live viewings and seeing how a player reacts when he, you know, maybe doesn't get a pass when he thinks he should, if he slammed his stick, the body language, it's on the bench, you know, those things are kind of the little nuances that you don't capture on video.” (Scout 1).

All 5 scouts either spoke directly or alluded to evaluating body language and how it is much more difficult it is to do so using video, which can be because of feed quality, camera angles, and other small details. The limitations of video scouting are important to note because when scouts view games in person it is unknown how scouts define poor or positive body language. 

This then ties into the previous discussion of a scout's background and how they are evaluating body language, and how that ties into their overall evaluation process to determine if a player is a good fit for their organization.

Two contradictory arguments can be formed from these ideas. If a scout gets minimal in-person viewings, are they restricting themselves from identifying poor body language and therefore weakening their assessment of a player? AND.. If a scout gets many in-person viewings where they are actively measuring poor body language and they do not have a background in understanding exactly how body language impacts future success, are they weakening their assessment of a player?

An example would be Nathan Mackinnon as he has been known for some of his outbursts. Has he been given a "pass" because he is talented? Is he just seen as competitive because of his success? Are "more talented" players able to show poor body language? Where is the line drawn, and how is poor body language defined? How is a player with poor body language evaluated when they are not viewed as a top player on a team?