BREAKING: Sharks Fire Russian Amateur Scout Igor Eronko
First reported by San Jose Hockey Now, the San Jose Sharks have fired Russian Amateur Scout Igor Eronko.
Dean Tait - Hockey Shots - BREAKING: Sharks Fire Russian Amateur Scout Igor EronkoFirst reported by San Jose Hockey Now, the San Jose Sharks have fired Russian Amateur Scout Igor Eronko.
In an exclusive conversation with GM Mike Grier, Sheng Peng reports that the team sent several warnings to Eronko.
“Igor didn’t meet the standard. For whatever reason, he wasn’t seeing games and wasn’t doing what we were asking of them. So we felt it was best to part ways with him,” Grier told SJHN.
Eronko was hired as a Russian-area amateur scout by the Sharks during the 2023 offseason. From 2020-23, Eronko was the Avangard Omsk assistant GM, and was a prominent KHL and NHL reporter before that.
With the Sharks cleaning house for a rebuild, Grier’s expectations for strong scouting reports are high.
“Where we are, scouting is obviously going to be a huge part of this thing as we go forward,” Grier said. “Everyone’s got to do their work and be responsible for seeing games and our staff has been excellent at it.”
As mentioned before, Grier said he issued multiple warnings. He stated that the situation in Russia has limited their ability to be hands-on with Eronko.
“We gave him several warnings about getting his reports in. Cleaning up his lists. And seeing games. You can’t scout or get a good feel of the players if you’re not at the rinks. For whatever reason, he was given plenty of notice that he needed to improve in this area, and he didn’t,” Grier said. “But ultimately, the situation that Russia is in, when you can’t really be over there and be hands-on and kind of follow people, they can kind of do what they want. He chose to do it half-heartedly. That’s not what we’re looking for.”
Grier recognized Martin Uhnak for taking on the job left behind of scouting Russian hockey.
“This year, we had Martin Uhnak, who’s been covering the Slovak leagues and the Czech leagues, he’s been able to go over there in person, which we’re giving him a ton of credit for, he’s doing more than was asked of him,” Grier told SJHN. “He was willing to get his visa and go over there and travel. So he’s spent a couple of weeks, following those top guys around and watching them, so we feel like we got a pretty, pretty good handle of the players.”
SJHN reports that Uhnak doesn’t speak Russian but has gotten help from translators and Nikolai Ladygin.
Grier said that his scout team have been receiving plenty of film and still conducting meetings via zoom. He continues to say that the organization hopes to hire someone in this scouting role full time before the next KHL season. The KHL is in the midst of its playoffs.
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