The Hawks’ Nest

So you’re drafted by the Winter Hawks and for a few days you’re on a high. You’re the toast of your school, the local newspaper runs a nice article on you, and your mom makes you your favorite dinner.

But what happens next?

For Winter Hawks draftees, they can expect a pretty hefty package in the mail. There’s some team swag which will make them the coolest kid in school, but more importantly, a significant amount of information telling them why playing in the WHL is their best option.

There’s two ways the Hawks provide them with this information, in print and on DVD.

The print portion is a 100-page book broken down into 11 sections: staff profiles, general WHL info, educational policies, how the WHL prepares players for the NHL, stats, schedules, info about billets, a sample player contract, team history, news clippings and photos.

The video portion is a 12-minute DVD dealing with many of those topics featuring interviews with Mike Johnston, Travis Green and numerous current and former Winter Hawks, including NHL players Braydon Coburn and Marian Hossa. If you want to see the video for yourself, you can check it out here (embedding didn’t work for some reason).

It might seem like a hard sell, but put yourself in the position of the players’ parents: they’re trying to figure out if they should send their teenage son away from home for 8 months of the year and entrust their child’s career, education and general well-being to the Winter Hawks.

For parents of Canadian players, there’s the educational component of figuring out how their son will be able to transfer from their Canadian school to an American one. At the same time, many of the kids come from small towns where a city like Portland may as well be Manhattan.

For parents of American players, they have to consider the fact that their son joining the WHL revokes their NCAA eligibility.

Recruiting is one of the underrated parts of running a WHL team, and from Day One Johnston has made it a high priority. Here’s what he said to winterhawks.com on the subject before the draft, in regards to players already on the team’s protected list they’re trying to woo:

“Recruiting is a process when you take a look at your list of any players that haven’t reported for one reason or another. They may be playing Junior A, they may be in the U.S. Development program, they may be thinking about college. Recruiting is an ongoing process with all those players. In the end if you don’t feel you’re going to get them you’ll probably drop them from your list. We have several on our list in that category, and right now my philosophy is to get as many players on that college supplemental list, players who are thinking about going to college, and if we get one out of every five or one out of every six or seven of those guys we can recruit and come back to our program that’s a big plus. There’s also some other kids who start college and maybe decide they can go pro quicker coming our route so they may decide to leave college and come this way.”

To open those doors, the process starts immediately.