NHL Notebook: Edmonton Oilers hire former NWHL commissioner Dani Rylan Kearney as pro scout
By Zach Laing
9 months agoThe club announced Thursday that the Edmonton Oilers hired former National Women’s Hockey League commissioner Dani Rylan Kearney as a pro scout.
Rylan Kearney, 36, played collegiate hockey at Northeastern University between 2010-11 and 2011-12, spending her final year as the club’s captain.
She helped found the NWHL and served as the league’s commissioner between 2015 and 2020 before she was asked to step down and move into an advisory role. Rylan Kearney spoke publically for the first time last March since leaving the league, expressing disappointment over how her tenure there ended.
The last number of years, she told The Athletic’s Hailey Salvain, have been spent helping develop girl’s hockey leagues on Long Island, and she expressed that she had an open mind to what her future in hockey would entail.
While the Oilers referenced her as a regional scout in an above tweet announcing her hiring, their website lists her as a pro scout for the club, alongside Warren Rychel, Jason Pietrzykowski and Chris Cichocki. The club employs eight amateur scouts: Jim Crosson, Scott Harlow, John Hill, Joakim Holm, Mitch Holmberg, Alex Naurov, Matti Virmanen and Christian Vermette.
Bob Green remains the Oilers’ chief amateur scout, while Milan Tichy — hired this past year, serves as the director of amateur European Scouting.
The hiring of Rylan Kearney marks another progressive hire for the organization, the second one of significance since Jeff Jackson took over as the organization’s CEO of hockey operations in early August. The first notable hire was Michael Parkatti as their senior director of data and analysis, someone who has been in the Oilogosphere for years breaking down the NHL using advanced analytics.
THE NHL NOTEBOOK IS PRESENTED BY BETWAY
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@oilersnation.com.
Recent articles from Zach Laing
