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Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Scouting a story
» Posted by Jon at 9:34 pm :: Comments (0)
I just got around to reading a story by an old friend of mine about the director of European scouting for the Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings, Hakan Andersson. This has to be his best story:
One time Andersson was flying to Russia to see a prospect for the third time, and his flight was delayed. After five hours on the runway in the snow, Andersson heard "this unbelievable roar."And I look at the window and there's this big ring of fire -- flames in the middle, and in the back of it there's a fan. It was a fan blowing wind through this ring of fire so the hot air would de-ice the plane. It was old-style Russian de-icing.
"So I was scared looking out. And at about 4:30 in the afternoon they said, 'OK, no flight. Get off the plane. Try again tomorrow if you want.' But then the game was going to be over, of course."
Thankfully, Andersson had already seen the prospect. Another scout on the plane, from St. Louis, had not.
And that's how the Wings got Pavel Datsyuk.
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