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On The Ground: The Winter Games

Agent Feldman Balances U.S.-Canada Women’s Hockey Rivalry

Red means Canada. Blue means American. And Team USA’s jerseys are white.

So Olympic agent Brant Feldman chose a totally neutral color to attend the preliminary round women’s hockey game between the arch rivals last Thursday at the Pyeongchang Winter Games: green.

“An early St. Patrick’s Day,” he joked between periods of Canada’s thrilling 2-1 victory.

Brant Feldman, founder of American Group ManagementBen Fischer

Neutrality is an absolute must for Feldman, whose company American Group Management has worked with premier women’s hockey players on both sides of the border during a 13-year career in Olympic sport management, including Canadian icon Jennifer Botterill and four U.S. national team captains.

This year, he represents Canadian Meghan Agosta and Americans Meghan Duggan and twin sisters Monique Lamoureux and Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson.

Feldman, who represents other Olympians such as aerials skier Ashley Caldwell and retired stars like former USA hockey captain Cammi Granato, is a fierce advocate for women’s hockey overall. He grows frustrated as he argues that there’s no reason the U.S. women’s hockey team can’t be as popular as the U.S. women’s soccer team. He thinks USA Hockey, the NHL and the continent’s two pro women’s hockey leagues could do much more.

“It’s a good product,” he said during the third period as Canada tried to hold onto a tenuous lead. “It needs to be marketed more. It can be marketed more. There is sales potential in NHL buildings and AHL buildings.”

At least on the Thursday afternoon I spent with him at the Kwandong Hockey Centre, his clients were at the center of the action — Agosta scored Canada’s first goal and Lamoureux-Davidson missed a penalty shot for the U.S. 10 minutes later. The game was only settled after the Americans came up empty on several good scoring chances in the final minute.

Feldman labors in the relative obscurity of Olympics sports, but he’s got friends in high places in hockey. In the early 1990s, he was Pat Brisson’s first employee. Brisson is now co-head of CAA Sports’ hockey division. That’s where Feldman first met Sidney Crosby, who was goalie on his inline hockey team in Los Angeles one summer. (At one point during the U.S.-Canada game, a notification of a text message from Crosby appeared on Feldman’s phone.)

Feldman figured he was on a path to a career in NHL management, but the 2004-05 lockout undercut the business and he turned to Olympic sports.

Another gold-medal showdown is in the works as both the U.S. and Canada made Thursday’s Olympic final. During my time with Feldman, he talks in great detail about promotional plans depending on who wins, thinking through timing with NHL home games and other competing events on the calendar after the Games end.

Fairness and loyalty prohibit Feldman from saying this in so many words, but a gold medal for the U.S. would bring him new business opportunities by driving attention in the world’s biggest economy. The U.S. hasn’t won gold since the inaugural women’s tournament in 1998; Canada has won four straight since then.

“If the U.S. wins gold, you’re going to have little girls in every NHL market wanting to play,” he said.

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