Getting paid to watch elite hockey prospects such as 3x Stanley Cup Champion Sidney Crosby sounds like a dream job for many individuals. This dream was a reality for Benilde-St. Margaret’s teacher Mr. Fred Bandel. He spent 25 years as an NHL scout for three different historic hockey teams.

Although Bandel was always involved in hockey, he did not plan on becoming a scout. An opportunity came in 1995 when Rejean Houle became the Montreal Canadiens general manager. Bandel had ties to Houle as he coached his son’s youth hockey team. After Bandel moved to Minnesota, Houle reached out and offered him a job as a part-time scout. “When I was living in Montreal I coached a kid whose father had played on the Montreal Canadiens for many years. And just by coincidence, he became the general manager of the team. The year that I moved to Minnesota, he asked me if I wanted to start scouting,” Bandel said.

The day to day life of a NHL scout is nothing like any other profession. Constant traveling and living in hotel rooms is a major part of the lifestyle. Bandel would go watch games every weekend; he was often out of town from Friday through Monday. On average, Bandel would watch 230 games per year. His region of scouting consisted of Western Canada and all of the US. “I always covered the United States, both, you know, West and East. And then for a few years I covered Western Canada… I wouldn’t go to a lot of games during the week, it would primarily be Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Mondays,” Bandel said.

Searching for NHL level prospects is not easy considering the amount of high level hockey leagues that exist in both Canada and the USA. The league that Bandel spent the most time watching players from was the United States Hockey League, otherwise known as the USHL. He also spent a numerous amount of time watching NCAA Division 1 games. “The USHL would be the number one league, and then all the NCAA division one colleges would be the second in terms of number of games to see,” Bandel said.

Scouting in the NHL is not a secure job. Any shift in an organization’s management can cause scouts to lose their position. Despite this, Bandel served as a scout for 25 years. His first seven years were spent with the Montreal Canadiens. Subsequently, Bandel spent two years with the Florida Panthers before he bounced to the Toronto Maple Leafs for two years. Bandel then returned to Florida for a thirteen year stint.

The reason for the constant movement between organizations is because Bandel served as a part-time scout for his first eleven years. Many general managers would rather have full-time scouts on their team instead. “When I was with Montreal there was a change in management. A new general manager came in and he decided he didn’t want a part-time scout so he let all of the part-time scouts go…Then I went to Florida and the exact same thing happened,” said Bandel.

As a part-time scout, Bandel worked two jobs. He spent 28 years working in orthopedic surgeon education. This made scouting more difficult because he was practically doing full-time work with only part-time pay. Bandel’s commitment to orthopedics was the reason that he was only able to travel on the weekends. “We always say it’s full-time work for part-time pay. The difference with a part-time scout is you have a regular job. I was working in orthopedics at that time,” Bandel said.

After Bandel’s eleven years of part-time scouting, he made the switch and became a full-time scout. This switch came when he joined the Florida Panthers organization for the second time. In his thirteen years in Florida, Bandel drafted one of the best prospects of his career. This prospect was American goalie Spencer Knight. “In terms of players that we drafted I think the one with the best upside will be Spencer Knight, the goalie we drafted in the first round,” Bandel said.

Now that Bandel is a teacher at Benilde St. Margaret’s, he doesn’t want to return to full-time scouting in the NHL. If he could get a part-time job he would consider taking it up, but he really wants to focus on teaching right now. The aspect of scouting that Bandel enjoyed the most was just going to watch hockey games. All of the games were high level and extremely competitive, making for very entertaining hockey. The downside to scouting was the constant travel required to watch all of these games. When traveling, Bandel would suffer from boredom due to sitting in his hotel room with nothing to work on. Along with traveling, job security is another reason that Bandel does not want to return full-time.

With teaching at BSM being his third career, Bandel considers it to be the hardest one yet. Despite the difficulty, Bandel thinks that it has the greatest reward. “This is my third career now, third kind of transformation. It’s the hardest job I’ve ever done, but probably the most rewarding. Scouting was very unique but it’s not in any way glamorous. You have zero security, even far less security than most jobs. You could be told you’re doing a great job, you can get good reviews by your organization and they can turn around and let you go,” Bandel said.