It’s a dark winter night in the US Midwest and Ted Hampson is ready for some hockey.
As the puck drops and the skates scrape, Hampson fixes his gaze not so much on the war, but on the individual soldiers.
One of the junior players catches his eye. Then another. Does one of them have what it takes to play the game at its highest level?
As an amateur scout for the Vancouver Canucks, Hampson always has that question in mind. And after some seven decades in the sport, he is as qualified as anyone to give an answer.
“It’s just going to games and being there and getting enough looks at a guy,” says Hampson when asked what makes for a good scout. “You have your gut feeling about players, and everybody has that. Sometimes a player strikes you in a certain way. It might be your type of player, it might be a player like somebody you admired and so you kind of lock in on that guy. But the big, strong, talented guys are easy to spot.”
Or at least easy for Hampson, 78, to spot. He has enjoyed a legendary NHL scouting career borne out of a surprisingly durable playing career.
And as he will proudly tell you, the seeds for it all germinated on the frozen surfaces of Flin Flon back in the 1940s and ’50s.
Learning the game
Born in the Saskatchewan village of Togo, northeast of Yorkton, in 1936, Hampson moved to Flin Flon with his family around the age of eight.
He knew how to skate quite well but hadn’t played any hockey. That changed in Flin Flon, he says, because the game was “pretty well everything.”
Given a hockey stick by his parents, the young Hampson mastered the tool on the outdoor rink near the company apartments, where his family lived.
Today they say every Canadian boy dreams of playing in the NHL. Back then, Hampson’s sole aspiration was to join the Flin Flon Bombers.
“To me, the NHL was something very remote,” he recalls. “We didn’t even have television at the time I was growing up, so we listened to Hockey Night in Canada sometimes [on the radio]. The Bombers were usually playing [on Saturday], so I usually I didn’t hear the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast, either. My ambition was to play for the Bombers.”
It only took eight years for Hampson, a two-way forward, to realize his dream. He recalls playing his first game for the Bombers in the 1954 playoffs when he was just 16.
Pulling on that maroon and white jersey was an unforgettable – and daunting – experience.
“The first time I put it on, it was a little intimidating. I was kind of in awe,” Hampson says.
At the time, Hampson’s brother-in-law, Buddy McDonald, was in his last season with the Bombers. The day Hampson was called up to play, the rookie did everything McDonald did.
“When he ate, I ate,” recalls Hampson.
Hampson played one game that post-season and 13 games the following season before establishing himself as a regular in 1955-56. The next season, his last in Flin Flon, remains his most memorable.
“Winning the Memorial Cup was really the highlight, in my mind, of my whole career,” he says of the historic 1957 championship. “I’m more proud of that than anything.”
Hampson says speed and teamwork enabled the Bombers to defeat the Ottawa Canadiens for national junior supremacy.
And while it seemed everyone pegged the Bombers as the underdogs in the series, Hampson, who captained the team, points out that verdict was never unanimous.
“There were a lot of people that believed in us also and knew that we had a lot of the qualities that we could win the series with,” he says. “And I go back to what I said: Speed and teamwork. Everybody was important. We had some guys get more points than others, but it came down to everybody had to pull their share of the load.”
Next step
After Flin Flon, Hampson played in the minors for three years before cracking the roster of the Toronto Maple Leafs. He skated in 41 games that year, 1959-60, notching two goals and eight assists.
He moved on to the New York Rangers and then the Detroit Red Wings, where he played about 20 games on a line with two of hockey’s all-time greats in Gordie Howe and Alex Delvecchio.
Hampson was later demoted to Detroit’s third line, but he could hardly complain as he shared the ice with future Hall of Famers Dean Prentice and Andy Bathgate.
Stints with the now-defunct Oakland Seals and Minnesota North Stars closed out Hampson’s NHL career. All told he played 676 NHL games, registering 353 points.
After his final NHL game in 1972, Hampson carried on in the minors. From the time of his Bombers debut to his final game in the CHL, he played parts of 25 different seasons – a feat that would make even today’s well-trained athletes envious.
Not bad for a man who stands just 5 ft. 8 in. and only scored 20-plus goals once as an NHLer.
“I was always a very good skater and I think a hard worker, so that allowed me to become a penalty killer and a checker for some years of my career,” Hampson says. “Sometimes the chemistry is right with some linemates and you end up being on the scoring line, and so I had that. So skating and the fact that I knew I had to work hard for everything I got because I didn’t have the size and I wasn’t super talented.”
After retiring from playing, Hampson became head coach of a junior team in Minnesota, the Bloomington Junior Stars. After two seasons there he moved on to the CHL’s Oklahoma City Stars, where in addition to being coach and GM, he also played 32 games across three seasons.
When he lost his job in Oklahoma, Hampson worked as a scout for NHL Central Scouting, a department within the NHL that ranks prospects.
Caron’s call
Three years later, in 1983, Hampson received a call from Ron Caron, the passionate new GM of the St. Louis Blues. The two men had only met once, but Caron had a job offer Hampson couldn’t refuse: head scout for the NHL club.
In his new role, Hampson literally scoured the earth for top-level talent. Though he never takes credit for “discovering” any single player, he did successfully urge St. Louis to draft future stars Rod Brind’amour and Cliff Ronning, as well as a little-known Minnesota boy named Bret Hedican, who went on to a distinguished career.
Those and other finds had the Blues retain Hampson’s services for nearly a quarter-century before he accepted an offer to become head scout of the Colorado Avalanche in 2006. Three years later he was replaced and offered a different job with the Avs, but he chose instead to become an amateur scout for the Canucks.
Six seasons later, he remains with the Canucks while maintaining his long-time home in Minneapolis. He focuses on the western and Midwest regions of the US, keeping tabs on junior, college and high school players.
Beyond his work life, Hampson spends time with his wife of 56 years, Gail, and the couple’s three sons and seven grandchildren. He also books a month each year to return to the family cottage in Denare Beach.
Hampson still loves his job, but with his 79th birthday approaching this December, he is pondering retirement – sometimes.
“A lot of people think of me retiring, but I don’t think of it as much,” he says. “I just kind of let it roll along and see how it goes year to year. I’ve been lucky to have good health, but it crosses my mind more often now.”
Crossing his mind even more frequently are the many memories of his Flin Flon upbringing.
“Being part of a huge family of Flin Flonners, that’s still kind of the number one influence in my life,” he says.
