EMILY HSUEH
SHAWVILLE April 14, 2021
Todd Hearty’s work and passion for hockey has taken him around the world and back. From a boy who attended Pontiac High School to scouting for three different NHL teams, Hearty has . . .
recruited players from all over the globe, but has never left his Shawville roots behind.
Hearty has been heavily involved in hockey and other sports for his entire life, both as a player and as a scout. He graduated Pontiac High School (PHS) in 1980 and has been working in the hockey world since then. His accomplishments have not gone unnoticed in the Pontiac, as he has been inducted as an athlete into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame.
“Obviously [we’re] from different eras or different decades, but it’s amazing how many people have come out of Shawville; plenty of guys caught on to such great things. So it’s really exciting to be part of that group,” he said.
Hearty’s ties to the Pontiac run deep. Though he and his sisters were born in Rochester, New York, both his parents were from longtime Pontiac families — the Murrays and the Heartys. His parents left Quebec to work at a General Motors plant, and the family moved back to the region when Hearty was around 12.
He began attending Pontiac Protestant High School, as PHS was formerly called, and quickly jumped into as many sports as he could.
“The only thing I didn’t really didn’t like was running cross country. Everything else I was really keen on being a participant,” he said. “We had lots of opportunities.”
While he was able to get experience in many different activities, Hearty’s heart belonged to a sport that wasn’t offered at the high school: hockey.
“I was kind of pushed into either … basketball or hockey because they kind of overlapped each other,” he said. “When you left school everyday, or at least twice, three times a week, you were going down to the rink. You’re playing minor hockey so you had to go and practice. We did what we had to do at basketball practice, volleyball … and then just ran to the rink after so it was pretty steady.”
However, Hearty did not discover his passion for the sport or pick up a stick until when was 12 years old, when he moved to his parents’ hometown. Living in Rochester, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for hockey, so he played baseball until he had access to it in Canada.
After his move, he learned to skate, grabbed a hockey stick and played in the minor hockey league until he joined the Arnprior Packers Junior B team. He had stints with the Ottawa Jr. Senators and the Pembroke Royals Junior A team as well. He also coached the Packers and the Shawville Pontiacs from 1984 to 1986.
From there, he used his experience as a launch pad to make it even bigger. With the help of Bryan Murray — general manager of the Ottawa Senators and Anaheim Ducks, and fellow Hall of Fame inductee — Hearty made his way into the NHL as a scout, which he has proudly been doing for the last 22 years.
“What I’m doing is I’m going all over the world, wherever there’s hockey and every year there’s an NHL draft. I go watch the first year draft eligible kids, rating kids. You’re judging talent and projection on them to play pro,” he explained, “North America, Europe, Russia; wherever there’s hockey, I go. So I travel quite extensively.”
He worked as a scout with the Florida Panthers from 1999 to 2002, the Anaheim Ducks from 2002 – 2008 and with the Philadelphia Flyers, from 2009 to the present day. He and his team have drafted names such as the Ducks’ Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf, and Sean Couturier and Ivan Provorov of the Flyers. He was with the Anaheim Ducks when they won the Stanley Cup in 2007, which was a highlight of his career.
“All the young guys that we have there now pretty much been a part of what I’ve done,” he said.
Since the pandemic and the travel restrictions came into place, Hearty has not been able to travel for work. Instead, he has been focusing on the Canadian leagues, specifically the Quebec league, to continue scouting. Scouting is now done through video, something Hearty says has been a bit challenging.
“It’s not something we’re used to, we’re more used to watching the live content. Watching video and games on TV, you don’t get the whole picture, you can get a little bit but it’s more of a tool than it is the right way to do it,” he said. “So we just got to work with what we have this year and try to prepare for the draft.”
Despite the lack of travel, Hearty has learned to like staying in one place. His goal is to see his team win the Stanley Cup Finals one more time before packing it up.
“I never realized [I] could retire until last year. I have aspirations to try to win and try to add to my resume,” he said. “I have one Stanley Cup so far, so I’d like to get two.”
Other than scouting, Hearty kept active in the hockey league in Shawville, playing pickup when he was in town and competing in the top division in the Flying Elbows tournament every March. He is also involved in the Shawville Fastpitch League. Hearty said he will continue to compete until the day he can’t anymore.
He credits his success in part to the people who influenced him in the town he calls home.
“Dave Holmes was instrumental for me. If you needed to be pushed or if you needed to get to another level, sometimes you didn’t always get it from your peers and you went one-on-one with him,” he recalled with a laugh. “John Petty was great because he would give me a chance, especially when I was a younger guy. He would put me in with the older guys and more of a development thing, see where it takes later on. He gave me an opportunity to learn and then obviously when it was your time, you’re good. You’re ready for it.” Rick Valin and Jim Thompson also played a big part in his athletic development.
Now acting as the leader, Hearty shared his wisdom with students wanting to follow a similar path.
“When it comes to professional sports, or whatever you love to do, it’s about passion. If you’re passionate about something, and you work at something long enough and hard enough, good things will come,” he said. “Put the time in, that’s the key.”
