The dual rarities greeted Connor Bedard on Tuesday in the form of a tweet and media briefing.
The primary, since Lululemon, announced Bedard as an apparel brand ambassador before he even set foot on the NHL ice or officially met the team he can be playing for.
Off the record, though, there is no have to wait for Gary Bettman to announce that Bedard will be joining the Chicago Blackhawks as No. 1 on Wednesday night, and the right to call up the 17-year-old was the reason it lasted a yr. refueling amongst the league’s lowest feeders.
In the NHL, where player marketing is a punchline even amongst players, the Canadian phenomenon is taken into account sufficiently recognizable to advertise not Nike or Adidas, but a retailer best known for its cozy pants counts as noteworthy – admittedly, a retailer based in Bedard’s hometown of Vancouver .
The second involved Bedard sitting on a podium at the AllianceBernstein Tower in Nashville, Tennessee, answering questions from reporters – a mild gathering notable just for its scale.
While a gaggle of high-profile prospects were shared concurrently on the rooftop, talking to a handful of people at a time, Bedard needed something more official: a podium, a microphone, a moderator, a seat after everyone else.
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This was presumably inconvenient for all concerned – especially Bedard, who had heard all these questions 10 times up to now.
Of a season during which he scored 71 goals and assisted 72 more with the Western Hockey League’s Regina Pats, leading Canada to Junior World Championship gold with a staggering 23 points in seven games, he said: “I had lots of fun in the beginning that is most significant.”
Of the goals he set for himself, he said: “First of all, of course, to create a team. That is goal no 1.”
All of this resonated with the self-image Bedard had developed over the past months, most notably in an interview on the TSN ice after winning the Junior World Championship MVP award.
“I don’t need to speak about myself,” he said then. “We’re not talking about me. We just won the biggest tournament in the world and man, I really like this team, this country.
Bedard, like his basketball counterpart Victor Wembanyama – whom he described as a “special player” for those who’re wondering – is predicted to catapult a rebuilding franchise whose hard times have been short in comparison with the championships that preceded them.
The last time the Blackhawks picked the No. 1 overall was in 2007.
They chose Patrick Kane, who had just put himself in the feud for the title of all-time best American player by helping Chicago win the Stanley Cup in 2010, 2013 and 2015.
These moments, especially 2010, were marred by revelations made by Kyle Beach, a former minor league member of the Chicago system, who claimed he had been sexually assaulted by video coordinator Brad Aldrich, and the allegations were grossly mishandled by the group, consisting of which included coach Joel Quenneville and general manager Stan Bowman.
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Quenneville and Bowman, who moved to other positions before Beach went public in October 2021, were promptly banished from hockey.
But the franchise avoided a effective of just $2 million whilst owner Rocky Wirtz got into more trouble by angrily answering fan questions on the City Hall scandal in early 2022.
Chicago settled the lawsuit with Beach in December 2021.
As such, the Blackhawks are set to speed up their return to the role by choosing Bedard, whose string of successes between the Western Hockey League’s Regina Pats and Team Canada at the Junior World Championships suggests he might be DiMaggio Kane’s mantle.
Nevertheless, in a 13-minute meeting on Tuesday that was full of modesty, the crowning moment was when Bedard described playing in the NHL, saying: “It’s still my dream. So let’s hope we get there.”
As for dreams, this one appears to be on the right track.