By Ethan Ready

Scouting Woes

Cougars’ head scout embracing challenging future of recruitment

Dec 23, 2020 | 5:15 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – At this time last year, Bob Simmonds would have been nearing his 700th hockey game of the year. Yet right now, the head scout for the Prince George Cougars has been keeping to his home in rural Alberta.

“Time just seems to race by in a regular environment in a scouting perspective because there’s always the next weekend,” explains Simmonds. “It certainly breaks up the winter season and makes things go by quite rapidly. There’s never a lack of things to do.”

On Monday (Dec. 21), the Western Hockey League announced the WHL Draft, which was originally scheduled for May 2021, has been pushed back to December of next year.

The WHL also announced that the 2021 WHL Cup is tentatively scheduled to be held in October 2021, featuring WHL Draft-eligible players, providing another opportunity for eligible players to showcase their talents to WHL scouts in advance of the 2021 WHL Draft.

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“This is going to be a unique situation obviously with the draft rescheduled to December because as we get back up and running next year, and fingers crossed things go back to normal somewhat, we’ll in effect be scouting for two drafts at the same time, the ’06 draft and the ’07 draft,” says Simmonds. “It’s going to be fun, it’s going to be exciting, but it’s going to be challenging for sure.”

Simmonds says even though restrictions prevent scouts from getting inside arenas across the country, there’s still a lot that scouts are managing to do for their respective clubs.

“I keep in regular contact with the prospects that are on our 50 player list. I make sure they’re up to date with everything and they have all of the information with respect to where the Western Hockey League is at, where the Prince George Cougars are at. Right now, I’m just passing along information to our prospects. Obviously, it’s challenging and frustrating, but we’re not the only hockey team in this situation.”

But as the state of the regular season is still up in the air, Simmonds says there’s right for Cougars fans to be optimistic about the squad when they do finally hit the ice.

“Our young prospects are elite-level hockey players. I think the sky is the limit for them. We have a good group of older mentors and leaders on the team,” states Simmonds. “I think the Prince George Cougars will be very competitive, but we also have our eye on the future and the seasons beyond because we want to make sure we’re well-positioned for success in the subsequent years.”