The Victoria Royals turned to a member of the Portland Winterhawks - championship finalists the last two Western Hockey League seasons - to oversee its scouting staff and future signings.
Grant Armstrong of Delta was named the Royals' director of player personnel on Wednesday after spending the previous four seasons as head scout with the Winterhawks.
"I'm pretty excited about the opportunity," said Armstrong, over the phone from Port Alberni where he was instructing a hockey camp the last two days. "It's a great organization with fantastic people who all have a collective vision of trying to make this product into a championship team and a championship organization."
Armstrong's nose for talent has helped the Winterhawks reach the WHL championship series the last two years. In his first season in Portland, the Winterhawks selected the likes of Derrick Pouliot and Tyler Leier in the annual bantam draft.
"This is a great challenge, a great opportunity," said Armstrong. "With the coaching we have now in Victoria, that's going to be a fun group and we just want to make sure we find those players that play at a high pace, have good hockey sense and a high compete level.
"Those are the values, along with skill, that make your team a championship-type team. We were successful with that in short order in Portland and, for the most part, the model we want to build off in Victoria."
Armstrong's association with Royals' assistant coach Enio Sacilotto led to meetings with general manager Cam Hope, who is top-layering the scouting staff with the addition of Armstrong, while keeping Garry Pochipinski as director of scouting.
"He's a good evaluator and he has experience in hockey," Hope said of Armstrong. "But the things that are important for me are he's an organized guy who shares with me the idea that you need to communicate and have a line of communication when you're gathering information.
"He not only wants to be out there scouting, he's willing to take on the big animal of processing and getting the lines of communication going."
It's not yet known if Parry Shockey will return in his role of director of WHL scouting. [email protected] Twitter.com/tc_vicsports
