Freeport native John Osei-Tutu has made a name for himself as one of only two Black agents in the NHL

It’s not hard to find John Osei-Tutu in a hockey rink. He’s always talking with someone, and he keeps getting interrupted, as others come over to say hello.

Osei-Tutu is one of the fastest-rising power brokers in the hockey world. He’s an NHL-certified player agent, with a roster of clients that includes 10 NHL players, whose combined contracts are worth over $100 million.

But the 37-year-old Freeport native is a little different than the typical hockey agent. He’s one of just two Black agents with clients who play in the NHL.

“It hasn't ever really factored into my approach,’’ Osei-Tutu said of being Black in an overwhelmingly white field. “And I think I've also taken pride in those moments when . . . I go approach so-and-so at the rink, and they say, ‘Oh, are you the Zamboni driver?' And I’m like, ‘Oh no, I'm actually an agent, and I'm here to talk to you about your son.' ’’

Osei-Tutu founded his agency, The OT Sports Group, with partner Bobby Gauthier, in January 2016. Today, their client list is headlined by NHLers Matt Coronato, of Huntington, who signed a seven-year, $45.5 million deal ($6.5 million annual average value) last summer; James Hagens of Hauppauge, the seventh pick overall in the 2025 draft by the Boston Bruins, and goaltender Brandon Bussi of Sound Beach, who in June became the second Long Islander to win the Stanley Cup, with the Carolina Hurricanes. Osei-Tutu’s clients also include Professional Women's Hockey League players.

Building connections

“He’s got a lot of high-end clients right now, and it’s still growing,’’ said Ross Mitton, a 26-year-old from Copiague Park who is Osei-Tutu’s nephew and was his first client. “I have a lot of my old friends and teammates who are looking for agents and always reaching out to me to see if they can have a chat with my uncle. It’s really nice to see that he’s making a lot of noise in the industry right now.’’

Osei-Tutu’s clients rave that his relationships with them are about more than just hockey. Most think of him more as a friend than an agent.

“He’s an unbelievable person,’’ said Northport’s Tanner Pearson, a senior forward at Providence College. “Whatever you need help with, he’s always right there for you. And he always pushes you to get the best that he can out of you. He’s a great human being. He’s a great friend.’’

Osei-Tutu said he wants to be that trusted person in the business who "has all of the information that I can give you to help you avoid all of the mistakes that the people that came before you [made]. What it comes down to is . . . you are the person there to [prevent]  problems.’’

Bussi, who was in goal when the Hurricanes beat the Vegas Golden Knights to capture their second title, was one of Osei-Tutu’s first clients, signing on a few weeks after Osei-Tutu and Gauthier started their business. He was 17 and playing for the Long Island Gulls’ 18U team, and he didn’t already have a family advisor, because his dad, Robert Bussi, hadn’t seen the need for an advisor when Brandon was 13. But when Osei-Tutu called, Brandon was looking to play junior hockey, and the elder Bussi thought it was time to get an agent, someone to help the family negotiate the cutthroat world of junior hockey. He had coached with Osei-Tutu in the Long Island Royals organization years earlier, and trusted him to do that.

“People giving me business cards early on about how they were going to navigate [youth and junior hockey] for me . . . there was no comfort level there,’’ Robert Bussi said. “The comfort level with John was much greater.’’

Bussi played for four different junior teams before landing at Western Michigan, then spent three years in the minor leagues before Carolina claimed him off waivers from Florida in October. In February, he signed a three-year, $5.7 million contract with the Hurricanes.

Agent of change 

Osei-Tutu’s path to becoming a hockey agent began when he was 4 years old, when he saw the 1992 Disney movie, “The Mighty Ducks.’’ The film featured two Black players on the team, so Osei-Tutu asked his mom if he could try hockey. His parents took him to the Freeport Recreation Center Ice Rink to get him started, and he fell in love with the sport right away.

His father, Dr. John Osei-Tutu, Sr., a psychiatrist from Ghana, and his mother, Peggy, of Queens,   became typical hockey parents, investing in skating lessons and hockey training. John played until he was 18, then immediately began coaching.

When Mitton started playing, Osei-Tutu coached him and his peer group, which included Islanders prospect Marshall Warren, and when Mitton started joining higher level teams on the way to junior and college hockey, his uncle became his de facto family advisor.

“He taught me how to skate, how to play the game, and I think he fell in love with navigating where I was going to play each year,’’ said Mitton, who played in the Islanders' organization last season but just signed with the AHL Toronto Marlies.

While he was coaching, Osei-Tutu would get calls from agents seeking to represent players on his teams. In talking to them, he said he was “supremely underwhelmed.’’ He said he didn’t think some of the agents gave enough attention to the players and he didn’t like that the relationships were often purely about business.

“I felt if these are the guys that are negotiating deals and representing these players," he said, "then there's nothing stopping me from doing this.’’

So, after graduating from Molloy College (now Molloy University), he went to Fordham Law School, with the goal of becoming a lawyer and working at a firm for a few years before "at some point" becoming a hockey agent. He’d met Gauthier when he had recruited Mitton to play for the North Jersey Avalanche, and he had shared the plan with him.

After graduating law school, he realized just a few weeks into his first job that he hated the work. So he sped up his timetable to become an agent. One day he called an NHL agent to ask him for some tips about getting into the business, and the agent refused to talk to him because he might someday be a competitor. That night he called Gauthier and convinced him to quit his day job so the two could start their business right away.

“And then we started forming the business out of Molloy College and the Ice House rink in Hackensack, New Jersey,’’ Gauthier said. “And off we went.’’

Gauthier said it never even occurred to him that it might have been somewhat far-fetched that a Black man could be a hockey agent. (Eustace King, of O2K Management Group, is the only other Black NHL agent.)

“I didn't even consider the fact that he's a Black man,’’ Gauthier said. “I considered the fact that I built a relationship with him. I knew his family. I knew his nephew. I knew how passionate he was about hockey.’’

One of the things the two men realized early on is that they needed mentoring by an experienced NHL agent. They talked to several, some who tried to squash their young business, and others who tried to hire them. Eventually they partnered with Jay Grossman, who headed Puck Agency. They worked with him for nine years, learning under him, until he died in April.

Ten years into Osei-Tutu and Gauthier’s venture, their agency is growing. They represent around 60 clients, who come from all over the world. At the NHL Draft in June, they had a player from Slovakia, goalie Samuel Hrenak, taken in the third round by the Winnipeg Jets.

So what is the end game for Osei-Tutu? What is his ambition? He doesn’t rule out someday making the jump from player representation to running a team, a la Leon Rose, who was an agent before he took over as Knicks president, and he also can see himself one day representing athletes in other sports besides hockey.

For now, he has more focused goals.

“I do want to be the best agent in the league,’’ he said. “Not necessarily the biggest. I don't want to represent half the league. But I want to be the best, and I want to be known as the best.’’