Constructing A Junior Hockey Team/Part Three

THE FUTURES DRAFT

Mark Carlson's office at the Cedar Rapids Ice Arena isn't that big. It's just large enough to hold a desk, a folding chair, a small couch, a couple of bookcases and a smallish safe.

On this day, you can add four large easel boards crammed with last names, assistant coach Mark Mullen, equipment manager Matt Degel, trainer Leo Miller and scout Dave Cadelli to the mix. Crowded it is.

"We're rockin,' Lion," Carlson said to Miller, after the coach typed in Cason Hohmann's name on his laptop and sent it to the United States Hockey League. He's the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders' first pick in the 2009 USHL Futures Draft, a kid from the Detroit area.

Via computer is how the USHL conducts its Futures Draft and Entry Draft each season. In the old days, coaches would gather somewhere in the Twin Cities with then-commissioner Gino Gasparini, write their picks down on a piece of paper and hand them to Gasparini.

Obviously, this is a better system - when your computer is working.

The following day, the wireless system at the Cedar Rapids Ice Arena crashes just minutes before the start of the Enty Draft. Dave Rose is the IT guy who comes to the rescue.

"We're lucky we've got you, Dave," Carlson said to Rose. "You could be the MVP of the draft"

Back to the Futures Draft, which involves selecting kids only with a 1993 birthdate. The RoughRiders will control their USHL rights for three years.

Things go smoothly until the RoughRiders are about to make their fifth and final selection. Scout Rick Beckfeld is very high on a young man he has seen play. Mullen also has see him, but isn't quite as sold. Carlson has never seen the kid play.

"Ricky, this kid has to be a ballplayer. He's got to be an impact player," Carlson says via phone to Beckfeld, who is driving from his home in Minnesota to Cedar Rapids for the following day's Entry Draft. "He's got to score 80 points, minimum, if he plays here two years."

The two go back and forth over the merits of the young man and whether the RoughRiders should select him. Voices are raised over both ends of the phone, as the rest of the room sits and watches somewhat awkwardly.

Finally Carlson hangs up. He looks at Mullen and says, 'Coach, you've got to make the call.'"

The RoughRiders end up taking someone else.

"I do have the final say," Carlson said the following day. "But you try to involve everybody and be fair. Yesterday we had a real difficult decision that we made not to take one player. Today we didn't have as much of that. It's just fortunate that we have good guys here."

Carlson is asked about drafting guys he has never seen play.

"That's part of what happens in this league," he said. "It's like any other business. When you have people that you trust, and they know a player or have coached a player, then that makes good common sense to me."