Anyone who is a registered NHLPA agent that approaches you is worthy of a conversation. Then it's relationship building. Who else do they represent? What's their philosophy? Since it's an informal verbal arrangement, you can always change if you run into disagreements.
If you have to hire an advisor, the your kid doesn't need one, they are just a money drain. if your kid is good enough, you'll have advisors knocking at your door, and their services are free until they make some level of pro hockey.
It depends upon what level your kid is at. If the kid will likely be picked in the entry draft, yeah they will call you and they will do it for free. But if all you're looking at is squeezing into a D-1 roster or falling to a good D-3 program, yeah the advisor can crank-up the PR machine and get the kid onto teams and get the kid an audience.
Everyone has seen the kid who is no better than the next kid all of a sudden start to get mentioned in the kiddie hockey rags, Jeff Cox mysteriously writes some glowing write-up on the kid and you go and watch the kid play and you scratch your head. Then all of a sudden the kid is a commit to some D-1 program because who can play and who can not is really a judgement call and a little birdie chirping that the kid can play all of a sudden there are believers. Seriously. Go watch the state D-1 championship game, then the Super 8 and then a prep game and you tell me.
It's foolish to think D1 coaches put so little into who they commit. They get fired for losing. Kids are watched dozens of times before they are comitted and then dozens more in juniors before being offered an NLI. To think you are going to squeeze your kid onto a D1 roster by an advisor you hire is foolish. But then again, that's exactly what the paid guys are counting on.
They're usually splitting hairs on kids unless they have the right last name or connections (Look at BC roster). Yeah there is a process to getting noticed.
You've got it out for one kid and you can't let it go. That's fine. I'm sure your kid is BC material and the kid with the name took his spot and because of that, no other school would take him. Yeah that makes sense.
One kid? Here's a little project for you, pull up the BC players bios on the team website and you'll see 85% of them are tied to some hockey legacy. And oh, the team sucks so what do you think? Go get some talent and stop pleasing the daddies
Why did this thread turn to trashing BC. The poster asked about Advisors, not BC. We all know there are a lot of fake hand shakers out there. Stop the crap about BC, has been and will be a great program for years to come.