Scoutr Provides Platform For Players To Rate, Review Amateur Hockey Team Experiences

Stormer Santana’s hockey career did not go as planned, but he has achieved his vision by founding Scoutr: an anonymous platform where former junior and college hockey players can rate and review different organizations and teams.

“In my three years of playing junior hockey, I was exposed to five trades, over 25,000 miles of travel and countless promises and expectations not met by organizations,” the former junior hockey player wrote. “I quickly realized that the information available to athletes and families when deciding where to play was extremely limited and biased — so I decided to change that, for everyone.”

Santana explains that restaurants have Yelp and vacations have TripAdvisor, and competitive youth athletes now have a place to seek information. Originally from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Stormer attended Shattuck St. Mary’s prep school in Minnesota before continuing onto a junior hockey career as he attempted to receive college hockey offers.

“Competing at a high athletic level involves making important decisions. Where do I play? Where do I focus recruitment? What will my living situation be like?” Santana told Sault Online. “Athletes need unbiased information from athletes who have been there.”

With the help of Scoutr, competitive youth athletes and their families will be able to make more informed decisions with the reviews helping to provide an unbiased look into different organizations. In addition to reviews by former players, Scoutr encourages family members to write reviews to provide insight into the overall experience from a different perspective. Scoutr uses nine different categories for reviewers to rate their experience on a 1-5 scale, including academics, travel, equipment, facilities, management, living conditions, game atmosphere, team reputation and exposure.

Scoutr was launched Feb. 14, and according to Sault Online, it had $20,000 in startup funding and already included over 100 team reviews at the time.

“But as expected, there has been some pushback from organizations that I believe feel a little threatened by the fact that they’re under a microscope now, and this is not a tool to tarnish reputations or anything like that,” Santana told CTV News Northern Ontario. “This is just a tool to provide athletes with the transparency that I think they deserve.”

While Scoutr only reviews hockey organizations currently, there is potential for this platform to expand to include many other youth sports across the United States and Canada. Later this year, Scoutr will expand to lacrosse and other college sports, according to Sault Online.

“We have done our research and know that a tool like Scoutr is needed across all sports,” Santana told Sault Online. “When you have devoted your life to training for a sport, decisions like where to compete or where to go to school shouldn’t be made based on information from one single, potentially biased source.”