Building the Break: Nick Bowins’ Journey of Beginnings, Boldness and Breakthroughs

Interview by Christina Winnegar | September 14 2026

Early mornings before school, the previous night’s National Hockey League (NHL) highlights unfold on SportsCentre. Growing up in a small town in Ontario, Canada, he found the morning recap his first connection to everything that happened while he slept. 

By recess, Nick Bowins and his friends had mini sticks in their hands. The snow covering the schoolyard became part of the game as they played until it was time to return to class. Later, hockey followed him home through NHL video games, which filled the hours before his parents took him to the ice rink for practice or a game of his own. 

He absorbed every part of it. He knew the players and remembered the statistics lined with their names, carrying what he had watched that morning into conversations with his friends throughout the day. 

“Everything was hockey, hockey, hockey,” Bowins recalled. 

At that age, Bowins only knew that he wanted the game to remain part of his future. He could not have known that the habit of searching for hockey information and sharing what he found would eventually help others build futures in the sport. 

Before he could help anyone else find a way in, Bowins had to search for his own.

A search that led him to the University of Waterloo in Ontario, where five co-op experiences appeared to offer five chances to begin. Then he logged into Waterloo’s co-op platform for the first time. 

At a university better known for fields far beyond sports, he had plenty of directions he could take. 

Hockey was nowhere on the screen. 

So true to his nature, he began looking beyond the platform for a way into the industry. 

The opportunity brought him back to the Owen Sound Attack, the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) team he had grown up supporting. Bowins secured an internship with the organization, working across marketing and social media before transitioning to a part-time role. 

The experience gave him his first place inside the game, but his career would not follow a straight line through hockey. Bowins eventually moved into the technology industry and spent about five years as Vice President of Operations at ShyftLabs. During his tenure, the company grew from five employees to 200. Part of his impact was hiring more than 100 people and reviewing an immeasurable number of resumes while leading much of its human resources and operations work. 

At the same time, he continued building Hockey Collective, a social media page with a strong following on Instagram that reached approximately 450,000 followers at its peak. Over time, though, posting highlights and debating NHL stars' abilities no longer felt fulfilling. 

Bowins wanted to create something more useful. 

“How can I find something that’s maybe a little bit more meaningful or helps people?” he remembered asking himself. 

The answer sat at the intersection of the two worlds he already deeply understood. Bowins combined the audience-building experience he gained through Hockey Collective with the hiring knowledge he developed at ShyftLabs and launched a brand built through passion: Working in Hockey. 

The idea was straightforward: help people find jobs in the game.

During its first week, the platform attracted approximately 1,000 Instagram followers. An early listing for a podcast editor with Spittin’ Chiclets was shared to a large audience, helping the page reach 2,000. A week later, after Bowins posted several internships, it climbed to 3,000.

“I was like, ‘Ok, there might be something here,’” he said. 

Two years later, Working in Hockey had grown far beyond an Instagram job board. Bwoins gathered open positions from across North America into a newsletter sent each Monday afternoon, reducing the time job seekers spent scrolling individual team and job board websites. Select openings also appeared on social media for particularly appealing postings. The brand later expanded to include a podcast and in-person events that connect aspiring professionals with those already working in the sport. 

The consolidation matters in an industry where an opening may disappear almost as quickly as it appears. Teams often close applications within a week or two, so someone who does not check individual career pages every day may miss a position that could have been right for them. Working in Hockey is designed to eliminate some of that “doom scrolling” and place as many opportunities as possible in front of job seekers at once. 

Only a fraction of the openings reach social media. Bowins uses those posts when a team requests extra help or when he believes a position deserves greater visibility. The newsletter is intended to be as comprehensive as possible. 

The platform grew to approximately 80,000 followers and 20,000 newsletter subscribers while Bowins dedicated only about a handful of hours a week to it. At first, he found nearly every opening himself. Now, he said, he shares at least half of the jobs, teams or people that are sent to him within the industry.  

Sometimes a listing comes directly from a hiring manager or human resources department. Other times, an employee sees an internal announcement and sends it to Bowins in hopes that a stronger or more diverse group of candidates will find it. Executives, coaches, general managers and agents have also contacted him simply to say they believe in the work he is doing in the space.

That response has been one of the greatest surprises of building the brand.

“The number of people–executives with teams, coaches, GMs, agents, people far more powerful and connected than me–reaching out saying, ‘Hey, man, this is cool. You’re helping people,’” Bowins said. “That’ll never not feel surreal.”

The shift represents more than the platform’s growing visibility. To him, it reflects how clearly people across sports remember the opportunity that once opened a door for them. 

“There are so many qualified people that it takes a break,” Bowins said. “That break can be knowing somebody. That break can be sitting beside somebody in the rink at the right time. That break can be a post going viral on social. Whatever it is, everybody has a break.”

As the platform grew, another experience showed him how difficult it could be for people trying to set their work apart from the rest.

He was offering resume reviews at a career fair when nearly 250 students and young professionals formed a single-file line in front of his table. Bowins was not there to hire anyone. Two Major League Baseball (MLB) organizations were positioned on either side of him, yet neither had a person waiting to speak with them.

One representative looked at Bowins’ line and called it amazing. 

Bowins saw one person seated across from him and a line of 249 others waiting for their chance.

“No, this sucks,” he remembered responding. “This sucks for 249 people.”

He could offer each person only a few minutes. The experience left him questioning whether there was a better way for aspiring professionals to introduce themselves and build genuine relationships within the industry. 

Working in Hockey’s events was inspired as an answer to this problem. Bowins aims for a two-to-one ratio: for every two attendees hoping to enter the industry, one person in the room already works within it. That balance prevents an event from becoming another long line of those competing for the attention of only a few professionals. 

The first events brought approximately 100 people together at New Jersey Devils, Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Islanders games. Then, shortly after Bowins left his technology career to pursue Working in Hockey full-time, more than 400 people attended an event held in June 2026 at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. 

Approximately 150 people had registered by the time Bowins left his day job. With the freedom to focus on promoting the event and contacting people, he spent the next two weeks advancing it. Final attendance more than doubled, despite the gathering taking place on the eve of the NHL draft, when many of the people he had hoped to include were already occupied with the league's business.

Some of the industry’s most established figures purchased tickets themselves and arrived ready to help those trying to follow them into the sport. Bowins had imagined a room where access would not be limited to whoever reached the front of a line first. In Toronto, he watched that room fill with more than 400 people. 

The turnout was especially meaningful because it brought the idea back to Ontario, where his own search had begun. 

“My whole philosophy with Working in Hockey is just building things that I wish I had,” Bowins said. “I wish I had a consolidated way to view jobs. Now there is one.”

Choosing to leave his full-time job meant betting that the platform could become more than a successful side project. Bowins was working long, grueling days in technology, fitting job posts into brief breaks and answering messages late at night. He routinely declined invitations to conversations and industry events because there was no more room in his schedule.

His mentor, the CEO of ShyftLabs, had consistently shown him the value of betting on himself. Eventually, Bowins decided he needed to do the same. 

“If I only put half of my effort into this, it’s only ever going to be half of a thing,” he said. “If I can put my full effort into it, I know it can be a full, self-sufficient thing.”

Working in Baseball became an early test of whether the model could extend beyond the sport in which Bowins had spent his life. Baseball was a natural first expansion. He grew up supporting the Toronto Blue Jays, while his wife Samantha’s family is devoted to the New York Yankees. With his wife working for Jomboy Media, the sport remains a constant in their home. 

More importantly, Bowins already had genuine relationships within the industry. Authenticity remains a boundary for any future expansion: He does not want to position himself as the face of a sport he does not understand or enter a space in which he cannot offer meaningful connections. 

The baseball landscape also requires its own approach. Hockey has seven NHL organizations in Canada, while MLB has only one Canadian club. Each sport has a distinct audience and professional network. Bowins can repeat the basic recipe, but he cannot assume that every ingredient transfers unchanged. 

Even with only about one post per week, Working in Baseball reached approximately 31,000 followers. The response showed Bowins that the same need existed beyond hockey.

“Did it work because it’s hockey? Did it work because I know people in hockey? Or did it work because it just works?” Bowins said of the initial experiment. “So far, knock on wood, I think the recipe is repeatable across other sports.”

The numbers have continued to grow. Bowins measures the platform's success by the connections it creates and the trust it retains from teams and companies.

Some of the clearest proof arrived through messages from two places he had never been.

One came from Des Moines, Iowa. The other came from a small town in Alberta, Canada. Both people cited Working in Hockey as the reason they found jobs in the sport.

He had never met either person before. Yet the company he created from his own journey had reached across borders and helped two strangers with completely different backgrounds begin careers within the game.

Their messages carried the story back to where it began. The boy from a small Ontario town had once searched for every piece of hockey he could find. His work was now reaching people far beyond that town and helping them find futures of their own. 

The impact quickly surpassed the modest goal he had set when the project began.

“When I first started this, I thought if I could help five people and have 1,000 followers, that would be an awesome side project,” Bowins said. “We cracked those pretty quickly.”

For those still waiting for their own break, he encourages them to meet people in person and make their work visible. Both require a willingness to act before someone else opens the door. 

Online relationships can start a conversation, but Bowins believes meeting face-to-face gives that connection greater weight. Attending an industry event is one route. Going to a game and being willing to introduce yourself is another. Some of his most valuable conversations have happened during ordinary trips to the rink because proximity creates possibilities that are difficult to replicate through a screen. 

“The amount of stories and connections that I make when I go to a rink for a random game– it’s crazy,” he said. “I hear and learn and get to be part of 100 times more things there in person than you do online.”

Bowins believes people must give their work a chance to be seen. A writer can publish an article. Those pursuing digital media can post their work or the accompanying analytics. Each project gives a hiring manager another opportunity to recognize the name attached to it. 

That recognition can matter when an opening attracts 500 or 1,000 applicants. A familiar name enters the process with evidence of what the applicant can already do.

“Whatever it is, you have to post about it,” he said. “You have to put yourself out there.”

He encourages job seekers to approach the process with the same initiative. Reaching out first can start a relationship, while tracking applications and interviews can show which parts of the search need to change—with more qualified candidates and available positions waiting to be discovered, leaving too much to chance.

Bowins is especially direct about internships and part-time work. During the eight weeks before his interview with HAZZE Sports, he shared 250 internship opportunities through the Working in Hockey newsletter. The full-time positions still received more clicks. 

He understands why. Relocation with limited pay can make an internship hard to accept, especially for someone with multiple jobs to support themselves. Bowins held several jobs while building his own career.

When circumstances allow, he believes those roles can provide access that an impressive title cannot. An ice crew position places someone inside the rink. A game night role builds relationships with people across an organization. Even an opportunity outside someone's preferred department can add experience that strengthens the next application.

“Those are the door openers: the internships, the part-time roles,” he said. “It’s a way into the industry. It gets you in the rink.”

Getting inside creates the opportunity. What someone does determines where it can lead.

He sees resourcefulness and communication as qualities that separate candidates once the interview process begins. When someone encounters a problem they have never solved, he wants them to research it and return with possible answers. They must also be able to explain their thinking and advocate for what they can contribute.

“That is the single biggest separator once you're in the interview stages,” Bowins said. “It's how you're able to communicate and tell your story and what you want to do.”

The advice reflects Bowins’ own path. His first step into hockey came through an internship with the local OHL team. He had grown up watching. Years later, his experience outside the sport helped him build a business and, more importantly, understand how to get hired. He carried that knowledge back to hockey and created the resource he once needed. 

Each job he shares makes one more path visible. Every event puts someone in a room they may never have entered alone.

Years ago, Bowins opened the University of Waterloo’s co-op platform believing one of its five placements could lead him into hockey.

What he found instead was a need for a platform that did not yet exist.

 

Today, tens of thousands of people are searching for the opportunity he once could not find, with Working in Hockey and Working in Baseball. 

He once searched for his break in the game that shaped his life. Now, he spends each week building one for someone once in his shoes.