Meet Earl Schwartz, Hurricanes’ Compliance Assistant

In early September, the Carolina Hurricanes announced a group of hirings, including Sidney Morin and Ellen Etchingham as pro scouts, and Earl Schwartz as the team’s compliance assistant. Earl, as many Twitter and Reddit users may know, spent quite a bit of time sharing his incredible knowledge of the NHL’s collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The NHL’s CBA is quite complex and has a lot of information, and he can recite most of it.

I had the opportunity to chat with Schwartz, and talk about his journey to this position. Schwartz, who is only 23 years old, had lots of great stories to tell, including his playing days, a train ride with the Detroit Red Wings’ Jim Devellano, as well as what it is like to work alongside the Hurricanes’ front-office staff.

Schwartz’s Early Days

For those of you who haven’t read Scwartz’s send-off article with LeafsNation, “Goodbye, Earl”, make sure to go check that out.

Thank you to anyone who has encouraged and supported me along the way, here’s a post just for you: https://t.co/NSzswhUlUv
If I can do it, so can you. Have fun, make mistakes, and give it your all. Sometimes it works out in the end.

In Canada, hockey is unavoidable. Sure, there are lots of people who are not interested in the sport, but every Canadian knows a little bit about hockey. For Schwartz, hockey was everywhere.

“I grew up in a really small town in Bloomingdale, Ontario and there was a library that had a handful of hockey books and I read every single one of them, go to your public libraries, they are awesome.”.

He took the time to appreciate the value that minor hockey centers have; from the coaches on the bench to the driver of the Zamboni, he was grateful for it all. After turning 18 and aging out of minor hockey, he wasn’t ready to hang up the skates quite yet. From the parking lot of the Wellesley arena, where he was trying out for a Junior team, he called up the general manager (GM) of Delhi, as he knew they were looking for players, and made the team after one tryout the following week.

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“That should have been a warning sign that we weren’t going to be very good that year, but I had a lot of fun there, just getting introduced to the little world of, well, it’s not minor hockey anymore.”

Later in his first season with Delhi, he was traded to Norwich, which happened to be the team he got into a fight with earlier that year. To Schwartz’s surprise, he was greeted with open arms and welcoming…