O’Hagan, who serves as Neutral Zone’s director of Ontario scouting, has been with the team since 2016. Through his experience as a player and his eye for talent, O’Hagan is a well-known name across the Ontario scouting community.
NZ’s Mathieu Sheridan caught up with O’Hagan to talk about his career and his work with the company:
MS: When did you first join Neutral Zone? How has your experience been so far?
POH: “I joined with the 2001 age group so eight years ago. In the early days, there were no rosters, hard to get information on players and a lot of the players height and weights, names even. A lot of the work was done via taking programs and things from arenas. Now, it’s much more organized. Rosters online, heights, weights, all of that information is online so you’re a lot more prepared going to games. I quite enjoy that. I think over the years too, everything I do is kind of local to my tech – my phone and my computer – so I still have notes on every player I’ve ever written up. I can refer back to it. I really like that. You can call me up and say ‘do you remember this player from the ’01 group?’ and usually if I’ve got eyes on him and written him up, I’ll still have the notes and access to it.”
MS: What does your role with Neutral Zone entail?
POH: “I run Ontario and I’m primarily focused on working with our scouts to make sure that we’ve got adequate coverage across the province in the key age groups. Really start it around U15 where we build a list of players that are entering their draft year in the top tier. U16, we’ve got a much bigger team to get after every player and every team in the province and try to evaluate 1000-plus kids. Get them written up and ranked, ordered and graded with our Neutral Zone star ratings and then once we’ve published our draft list, we move on and we’re able to see and follow those players the whole way through into whatever route they decide to go whether it’s into provincial junior or into the OHL. And really, like I said with Neutral Zone, the thing I like is because you’ve got the history with them, you can understand anomalies – players that are playing better or their trajectory is improving as they age. It’s good, particularly if you take good notes, it’s a strong position to be in because you know the player inside and out after looking at them for three or four years.”
MS: To you, what are some of the benefits that Neutral Zone brings to the table that some people may not know about?
POH: “First of all, you get a bit of pay for doing the work. There’s a lot of companies and teams out there who aren’t paying their guys very well. You get access into really strong scouting software with RinkNet and the Neutral Zone website and database of players. Neutral Zone is very good at providing video access as well. A lot of those nights, where you can’t be two places at once or you want to double back and have a look at who was in on the goals because often at games, you might miss a bit of the action because it’s it’s happening so fast. So it’s good to go back and use some of those tools to really do a deep dive on players.”
MS: You had quite the playing career: NHL draft pick, captain of Oshawa Generals, Memorial Cup Champion. What was that experience like?
POH: “The only word I can use for it is outstanding. Not only did we have some success there, my third year we won the Memorial Cup, my fourth year knocking on the door to get there as well. We lost in the OHL Finals. The players that I played with, not only the big league guys and the pros, most of the people went there or came out of that program were successful. They went on to school, got medical degrees, got surgical degrees, architects. Myself as well, I’ve had a good career in business and software. So being part of the Generals, they don’t just build hockey players, they really thrive in building good men, good people and preparing them for the challenges in life.”
MS: What was your experience like at Guelph throughout your four years there?
POH: “After the third and fourth year in Oshawa where we were in the OHL Championships two years in a row, I went to Guelph and I was three out of four years in the Ontario Championships and in the Canadians as well. That run of time in my hockey life was pretty cool. It was five out of six years, really, where I was knocking at the door and playing on a team that had a chance, had some opportunity to win Ontario Championships and Canadian Championships so for me it rounded out my schooling. It gave me a bit of an outlet because schooling gets tough. I thought it was just a marvellous experience as well both on and off the ice.”
MS: In relation to Guelph and Neutral Zone, has was your experience with Marlin behind the bench and considering you guys still have a good relationship today, what was that like?
POH: “With Marlin, he’s been one of those mentors that you’re lucky to get in life. He believed in me. When I went to Guelph, it was really after being released from Vancouver. The Canucks gave me an opportunity to go play in the East Coast league and work my way up but Brian Burke at the time told me ‘Hey kid, you’re smart. If I were you, I’d go to school.’ Kind of leaving an NHL dream behind and going to Guelph, I needed a bit of a rebuild and Marlin was there to really pick me up by the boot straps and say ‘Hey, let’s go kid’. Very quickly, I fit into that environment, appreciated his leadership and enjoyed a lot of success with him. Always kept in touch after hockey as well so that’s how I ended up at Neutral Zone.”
MS: Do you use your experience as a player, having played at a high level, in your scouting?
POH: “100%. Any of the weaknesses I had in my game, I was a defender, and any of the weaknesses I had in my game, if I see players that don’t have those weaknesses, it gives me insight into their ability to move forward. Any of the strengths that I had in my game, if I see those traits, I’ll defintely write about them. And there’s that group of players that I hated against too. Guys with speed were always tough to contain and guys who fought hard to the net were always tough to contain. To me, those are the things I look for. Stuff that I found difficult to handle as a player, I know most are going to find difficult as a player.”
MS: What are some of the on-ice traits that you look for that separates someone from other players?
POH: “I defintely like puck winners. I like people who are willing to compete for the puck. Any of the high-skill players that I played against back in the day, they were tough. They weren’t just high-skill, they were tough to knock off the puck, they were tough in the corners, they wanted the puck. They wanted to make plays. I like guys who are interested in getting the puck. You see a lot of U16, they can all skate, they can all shoot but some are kind of up and down the wing, not looking to get into getting too engaged in the action. I like the ones who are there presenting their sticks, getting to the net, engaging anyone who comes near their net on the defensive side. Those are the keys. Positive attitude. The stick swinging and banging their sticks against the boards, forget about it. This is stuff that should not be around at a U16 age. You like a little bit of passion but not always on display. Those are the key things I look at.”