Really interesting read, especially given that the guys he's writing about (NHL draft prospects from 2006 and 2007, and a few for 2008 & 2009) are now coming into the primes of their careers . . . or have never had NHL careers at all. ( )

Very good - since I cover college & U20 hockey, I have seen the majority of the players mentioned which probably added to my interest. Can't say I agree with all of his opinions and certain areas where he seemed to feel he was putting himself into a position to get more info than the scouts kind of made me laugh since he was still not doing much of it and one criticism was way off the mark because of that (an off-ice, not on). I'm also not 100% comfortable with how he went about certain things, but how things actually appeared vs. how they come across in the book could be pretty different. I did dislike him calling out Kessel/agent on objecting after the fact to him participating in questioning Kessel at the combine. Just because others didn't speak up, doesn't mean they didn't have objections - just means they felt that objecting since Columbus had given the okay could be a negative mark on them by Columbus. It was definitely interesting to read about the interviews, but if I were a player, I'd be uncomfortable with the addition of a journalist on top of the team's staff.

I was also a bit disappointed that most of it was about his desire to scout or see what it was like to scout as opposed to info on scouts and how they do their job, including some of the technology they use now. Some of it can be quite interesting, but there wasn't much of that at all. Final 'warning', very biased towards Canadian players - I get that he covered major juniors, but there are good US-born players there and if they got mentioned, they were frequently dismissed and considering the stats on the USNTDP, the lack of a visit seems odd whether Columbus has the area covered or not.

There's a lot of negativity in my review, but I really do recommend it. ( )