We are now in August and 'hockey news' gets expanded to 'anything even remotely relevant to hockey news' for the next thirty or so days.
I will say I was vaguely interested in seeing what Ottawa was going to do with the hockey operations department following the loss of Tim Murray and Rob Murphy to Buffalo -- to say nothing of the massive workload that Pierre Dorion and Randy Lee are going to be taking on as GM Bryan Murray beats cancer into a pulp. Anyways, here's what they did (release):
The Ottawa Senators (@Senators) announced today the promotion of Bob Lowes to the role of chief amateur scout while adding two full-time amateur scouts to the team’s scouting department.A Regina native, Lowes originally joined the Senators as a part-time amateur scout in 2006. As chief amateur scout, he will provide direction to the entire amateur scouting staff as the group prepares for each year’s NHL Draft. Lowes, who has been an integral component of the team’s drafting regime dating to his full-time hiring in 2008, spent 12 seasons as a head coach in the Western Hockey League between 1992 and 2004, the first nine of which were with the Brandon Wheat Kings before spending the next three seasons with the Regina Pats.
Trent Mann, who had been serving in a part-time capacity since 2010, primarily in Quebec and throughout the Maritimes has been promoted to a full-time amateur scout.
Don Boyd, who had previously been serving as a scouting consultant, has been named a full-time amateur scout. Boyd spent more than 10 seasons with the Blue Jackets from the team’s inception until the conclusion of the 2010-11 campaign, primarily in the role of director of hockey operations and player personnel. He has also served as an assistant general manager with Columbus.
Now, I've done some rudimentary work into the size (or lack thereof) of Ottawa's hockey operations department, so I figured that the team was going to need to hire at least a handful of guys in the next six months or so to make up for the employee gap and cover for the pair of lost bodies this summer.
The team didn't hire anyone yet, but they did increase the scope of two part-time guys. So, it's kind of, sort of like one hire.
Anyways, congratulations to Lowes on the promotion. I've heard nothing but good words about his work from those who have worked with him in the past, and this promotion does seem like a nice way to protect him from external vulturing.
Enjoy the weekend.