Gord Clark, the Rangers director of player personnel who was the Islanders’ assistant general manager at the time, gave Singh a part-time scouting job after Sator vouched for him in a phone call. Singh eventually was promoted to a full-time scout primarily for Western Canada working under then-head scout Tony Feltrin.
“Gordie Clark — who is my mentor — he didn’t see color or any of that. He hired me based on my skill,” Singh said. “Still, when I got hired, it was intimidating. A person of color walking into the scouts room, it was really, really intimidating.
“Here you have scouts in their 40s, 50s, 60s, ex-NHL players, Hockey Hall of Famers, and you’re walking into an arena in the OHL,” Singh said. “Nobody ever said anything, but I felt uncomfortable at times, not because I wasn’t going to learn or be respectful, but I was young and a person of color, too.”
Singh combined his love of hockey and his faith by visiting Sikh temples during down time on scouting trips across North America and Europe.
“Some people go to the movies or go to the malls before a game as a scout to kill time,” he said. “I went to temples and really got to understand my culture, and yet I also got to understand other people’s cultures and respect them.”
Singh said his co-workers made him feel welcome and comfortable by accepting his invitations to family gatherings and religious functions.
“Gordie Clark would be there, Tony Feltrin would be there. Indian weddings, cultural weddings, they embraced it,” Singh said. “Mind you, there were others who didn’t embrace it from other organizations who didn’t know me. Did they make offensive remarks and hurtful remarks? Yeah, they did. I would laugh it off, which was the wrong thing. The reason why I laughed it off was wanting to be accepted. I didn’t have a platform back then or a way to say, ‘This is wrong what you’re doing, this is wrong what you’re saying.’ It was a small percentage of people, though.”
Singh scouted for the Islanders until 2006. He became an assistant with Markham of the OPJHL under Cornacchia before joining the Canucks scouting staff in 2008.
“He was a very good scout who knew his players,” said Ron Delorme, the Canucks’ chief amateur scout. “He’s a good guy, good personality and just a kind man.”
Singh segued into player representation when he served as director of player recruitment for Uptown Hockey agency from 2012-19. He decided to strike out on his own last October.
“Everything was going so well, we were hiring, putting procedures, protocols in place and recruiting players,” he said. “Then the coronavirus hit, which almost put a stop to everything.”
Singh still managed to be an adviser to nine players who were selected in the 2020 OHL Priority Selection draft. Now he’s preparing for the emotional roller coaster that’s the NHL Draft.
“I guess my job as an agent, on that day in particular, is to make sure emotionally that everyone is well,” he said. “If things are great, support them. And if they’re not or (things) didn’t turn out how they wanted, I have to be an (amateur) psychologist or like a big brother or mentor to help them through it.”
