Color of Hockey: Bark 'can do everything' in Panthers front office

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog since 2012. Douglas joined NHL.com in 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today, he profiles Tom Bark, director of hockey operations and player evaluation for the Florida Panthers, who was born in South Korea.

Tom Bark said he only knew three English words when his family arrived in Canada from South Korea when he was 6 years old in 1996.

“’Apple’ and ‘Michael Jordan,’” he said.

But Bark knew hockey, having learned the sport in Seoul from his father, David, who began playing in South Korea in the 1950s.

Bark’s vocabulary quickly grew and so has his involvement in hockey, to where he celebrated winning the Stanley Cup last month for the second straight season as director of hockey operations and player evaluation for the Florida Panthers.

“It's a goal that you're obviously working towards,” Bark said of winning the Cup. “But in my mind, it was something so fantastic that you kind of don't really think about it. You just try to go ahead and do your job and try to be better and better.”

Florida general manager Bill Zito said the 35-year-old Seoul native has been a valuable and versatile part of the Panthers front office since he brought him to Sunrise, Florida, in November 2020.

It was a busy June for Bark, from watching the Panthers in Sunrise; traveling to Charlotte to keep tabs on Florida’s American Hockey League affiliate that lost to Abbotsford, the Vancouver Canucks’ AHL farm team, in the 2025 Calder Cup Final; going to Buffalo for the 2025 NHL Scouting Combine and back to Florida to be in the Panthers' war room for the 2025 NHL Draft, held in Los Angeles.

“You can't talk about everything that he does, because he can do everything,” Zito said.

“He’s been able to effectively manage anything, from information-gathering, media, scouting, he’s a good scout, and he’s actually a good hockey player. He has an intellectual capacity that is extraordinary, but he has an emotional intelligence that allows him to apply it. He can analyze situations, even on the scouting level, players, and keep going layer after layer after layer. But that might be his greatest strength.”

Bark said he was hockey-obsessed as a kid in Seoul, but his passion reached another level when his family moved from South Korea to the Toronto community of Etobicoke.

“As a Korean kid, you have to do a lot of things, piano, school,” he said. “But hockey was definitely the passion. That's what lit me on fire. That's what kept me up at night. That's what woke me up in the morning.”

Bark worked his way through the youth hockey scene from the Toronto Red Wings U18 AAA in the Greater Toronto Hockey League in 2005-06 to Streetsville of the Ontario Junior Hockey League in 2008-09. He and his family learned youth hockey in Canada was a different world from Seoul.

“We didn't really know what we were doing, right?” Bark said. “There was the local hockey league that I could get into, but there's a structure to minor hockey that these kids nowadays need agents to navigate through all of it. I was just playing hockey because I liked it, and it was fun.”

Still, Bark thrived and moved on to Lake Forest College, an NCAA Division III school in Lake Forest, Illinois, where he had 67 points (17 goals, 50 assists) in 75 games as a center from 2009-13. He was named team captain his senior season, but injuries limited him to one game.

“I was the shortest guy on the team (5-foot-7, 170 pounds),” he said. “Maybe you call it passionate and fiery, and I call it kind of stupid, but I thought I was 6-foot-2, so that led to a lot of unnecessary head trauma.”

His injury history led to a life-changing opportunity. Zito was looking for some help in 2011 when he was president and co-founder of Acme World Sports, a Chicago-based agency that represented several of the NHL’s top players. Justin Taylor, a forward for Lake Forest in 2009-10 and the son of Tim Taylor, Zito’s hockey coach at Yale University from 1984-87, recommended Bark.

“He said, ‘My buddy ‘Barks,’ he got hurt, he’s not traveling this weekend, he’ll do it for you, he’s a great guy,’” Zito said. “'Oh, and maybe he wants an internship or something.’ Okay, he’s an intern. He gets in there and we’re, like 'Oh, my God.’”

Bark became an associate for Acme from 2012-15, supporting agents in operations, regulatory compliance, contracts, global market dynamics and hockey analysis.

“That was the most fun stuff,” he said. “People use the term ‘family’ a lot in business settings. But working with that agency, seeing the bond these guys formed with players, with people, as you help them achieve their dreams, I mean, that’s as strong as it gets, bordering maybe on something you could call familial.”

Zito was so impressed with Bark's work that he invited him to be a part-time analyst for the Columbus Blue Jackets while attending the Moritz School of Law at Ohio State University, when Zito was an assistant general manager under GM Jarmo Kelalainen with Columbus.

The part-time gig turned into full-time employment and five seasons with the Blue Jackets, with whom Bark rose to manager of scouting operations and player evaluation.

“It was an incredible experience because the Blue Jackets at the time, we were a draft and develop team,” he said. “There was a heavy focus on the amateur draft and having the right pieces to build that team. It was a multifaceted experience, and it shaped a lot of how I view player evaluation and how scouting operations should run.”

Bark also got a taste of international hockey as an analyst for South Korea at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics and 2018 IIHF World Championship after a chance meeting with Richard Park on a bus during the 2017 NHL Draft. Park, who was the second South Korea-born player to reach the NHL, was South Korea’s assistant coach behind Jim Paek, the NHL’s first player in South Korea.

“Richard Park was like my hero, growing up watching those Minnesota Wild teams that made those runs,” Bark said. “At the end of the ride he says, 'Good luck, here's my number. A few weeks later, he reached out and asked if I wanted to help him and Jim Paek with the operation there for South Korea in any way. And I said, 'Yeah, absolutely, whatever I can do.’”

Bark loves being a part of Florida's front office, but he says he still has the competitive fire of a player. He occasionally skates in staff pickup games playing with and against Zito, retired NHL goalie Roberto Luongo, special adviser to the Panthers GM, assistant GM Brett Peterson and Sunny Mehta, Florida assistant GM and head of analytics.

“He’s the young guy and he’s good,” Zito said. “He tries real hard and takes the puck from us old guys and we get mad at him.”