CRANBERRY — A unique help-wanted ad on the public sports jobs website Teamwork Online caught a few eyeballs Wednesday.
The Pittsburgh Penguins are advertising for an assistant coach. Part of the duties to be considered are the ability to coordinate with the General Manager and Head Coach on the progress and development of all players in the team system. Pre-scouting the next opponent and facilitating individual meetings with players are also required.
Before you click apply, the job also requires 10 years of experience as an NHL player or in a related position, coaching National Hockey League (NHL) or professional hockey players.
After social media caught a glimpse of the ad, a team source explained to Pittsburgh Hockey Now the much less titillating truth.
The Penguins staff includes Canadian citizens, and as a matter of immigration and work visas, the team must perform a complete search to see if there are equally qualified American candidates.
This writer can confirm through personal experience that Canada has an equal requirement.
What is unique about this situation is the placement of the ad. Why the team posted this ad publicly, and other teams have not done so, isn’t immediately clear, but there is nothing more to it.
Of course, you can apply if you also have five years developing hockey players’ skillsets (ex: shooting, passing, skating) and hockey sense (ex: recognizing and understanding NHL team systems and gameplay) across all professional and amateur level, two years as a coach or player development coach at the NHL level, and 100 or more games played or coached in the NHL.
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