In Draft context, it's often more confirmation bias, you decide "Guy A > Guy B" so now you are looking for good things from Guy A and bad things from Guy B even if you don't mean to. Of course this is the least relevant form of bias, because presumably you want to draft the right player.
In the contemporary context, hard to remove emotion from it, a Pens fans that hates the Flyers may see Pens player good, Flyer player bad. Of course that's not only bias. Sometimes people are even biased against players on their own team.
In the historical context, there's also the bias of what we think we're supposed to think. If you know from your lessons that Sakic good, Turgeon bad, you'll watch an old game and see Sakic as good and Turgeon as bad to validate what you already know you're supposed to think.
First paragraph - I can't relate to that. Maybe when I was a teenager and in my early 20's and I looked at public lists first and then watched video...sure. But now that I don't consume that and my evaluation process continues to improve, my track record is much better. And like, I don't want to carry the mail for every NHL scout - quite frankly, a lot of them aren't very good, their process is bad. But I don't think this one is very legitimate...you'd have to aspire to be wrong and put your job on the line for that wrongness. This seems like something people might do on the Prospects board here haha - I'll buy that in a second. That's one of the stranger places on earth...
Second paragraph - Ok, I'll buy this one. Like you said though, it can swing both ways. Players get over-scouted. I'll use my own fanbase as an example...a lot of Penguins fans have really wacky opinions on Kristopher Letang, and while he isn't perfect, he's an outstanding two-way defenseman in this league...but he gets a lot of discredit from people who (presumably) see him 82x more than, say, Alex Pietrangelo. But all right...this is fair enough. It's easily dealt with if one recuses one's self from the couple of teams that they may hold "bias" towards...
Because I used to write for Hockey's Future back in the day, my name is all over this place. So, I don't want my name associated with a bunch of wrong and a bunch of stuff that I can't meticulously back. That's bad business. And I've been told as much by hockey execs...when I started doing YouTube videos and doing breakdowns of prospects way back when, the first player I did was Flyers first round pick Samuel Morin. Why? I'd know right away if I had an unconscious problem. And if I did, I wouldn't continue because the results would be tainted.
Third paragraph - This one isn't bad either. I did a couple of "blind" evaluations here with European players...numbers that I didn't recognize, announcers that I couldn't understand, no nameplates...and just went
CZE 17 - Blah blah blah
SOV 5 - A, a, a, a
SOV 11 - B, b, b, b
That turned out pretty good in a very short order, informal way. But again, and just speaking for me here, I don't hold any regard for the canon of any of this...I try to pull down the players that I don't think are very good versus their reputation and I try to prop up the players that I think are underrated by numbers/award counts/etc.
I think I made that quite clear in one of the projects where - with a Jean Beliveau avatar - went after Maurice Richard for some of the flaws in his game, for instance. Same with Ted Lindsay. I have a lot of respect for the history of the game, but I don't have deference for its tale. So, I'm interested in getting it "right" - and my definition of "right" is my definition, but it's not a secret...I don't just post the grades on the wall:
Jean Beliveau: A+
Bobby Hull: A
Maurice Richard: B+
Eddie Shore: B
I'll go into whatever detail you can stomach...and if you (royal you) don't like it, tell me why- maybe I'm missing something.
But at the end of the day, this one is like the first paragraph...I'd only be scared of that, if I was that. Ya know? The goal is to find the best players...I'm not deterred if a kid I'm watching is 19 when everyone else is 17 - I have to make that adjustment for where he's at on his respective development arcs and the level of competition and all that - but I'm not deterred by that. If a player isn't one of Central Scouting's 400 whatever player watchlist...ok, too bad, I guess they missed one. It happens...
In short, I'm not worried about ego lifting at the gym because I'm just worried about my form.