For my WW I did it on Hockey’s Next Goat, Connor Bedard.

Elijah

May 3

Writers Workshop

Mr. Ewert

Hockey’s Next GOAT

Connor Bedard. If you haven’t heard his name before you must not follow hockey. He is a 16 year old who plays for the Regina Pats of the WHL, but he’s in his second season because he got exceptional player status. Only the best players get exceptional player status, including Connor McDavid, Shane Wright, John Tavares, and Aaron Ekblad. If that doesn’t sound good enough for you, listen to this; In the 15 games Bedard played last year, he had 12 goals and 16 assists for 28 points! Almost two per game!

Connor Bedard doesn’t need to be watched to see that he is a good player. All you have to do is look at his stats and you can tell. As I said, he had 28 points in 15 games. Compare that to Connor McDavid, who only had 66 points in 63 games. Obviously McDavid had more points in his exceptional player year, but that’s only because of COVID. If Bedard played 63 games, I can guarantee you he would have had more than 66 points. The PPG average is pretty obvious to see Bedard did better. Now compare this to Wayne Gretzky’s first year in the CHL, when he was 16! Gretzky put up 182 points, 70 goals, in 64 games. Obviously this is better than Bedard, but Wayne was one year older and had only 1 PPG more, which is not that bad, especially compared to McDavid, who was about 2 PPG off Gretzky’s average.

 

This year Bedsy got off to a slow start but he came back from the World Juniors on fire, with a 20 game point streak. He had 21 goals and 42 points in that span. It was also one of the longest point streaks in WHL history! Still not as good as Gretzky, but considering how the game has changed with better defense and less scoring in games, I would argue that his stats are comparable to Gretzky’s. And, in Bedard’s WJC appearance as a 16 year old, before it got cancelled for COVID, he made history by being the youngest player to score 4 goals in WJC  history ever! He recorded 5 points in 2 games in total, which is 2.5 PPG. Connor McDavid, at the same age,  had only 11 points in 7 games, which is under 2 PPG.  Wayne Gretzky had 17 points in 6 games, which is actually close to Bedsy’s 2.5 PPG average, because Wayne had under 3 PPG, at the same age back when goals were scored all the time. Sidney Crosby had 5 points in 6 games. Bedard equaled that in 4 less games! Auston Matthews, on the U.S. U20 team, had only 3 points in 5 games. So, as you can tell, Bedard is a very good player against any competition. This year, after the World Juniors, Bedard had 45 points in 21 games, at 2.14 PPG. That’s insane.

Connor Bedard is basically a sure thing. I have never seen a single place say he is projected to be drafted anywhere besides number one. A big reason why he is so good is because he uses Bauer. Connor McDavid uses CCM and that’s why he hasn’t delivered at his expected Gretzky-like stats. Bauer is mostly lighter and has better grip on their sticks. Bedard uses Bauer so he has a better chance. That’s just a joke, but you can tell Bedard has style because he uses Bauer.

Here are some fun facts about him: Bedard is a centre for the Regina Pats of the WHL. He is the first player to ever get exceptional player status in the WHL. He was drafted 1^st overall in the 2020 WHL bantam draft to the Regina Pats. He is about 5’8” and 178.5 pounds. Bedsy is his nickname. His Zodiac Sign in Cancer. In 2018, he was named the future of hockey by the Hockey News. He played bantam with the West Van. Academy Prep of the CSSHL, playing with the U15 and U18 a year early for both. He is 7^th on the CSSHL U15 PPG all time list playing 50 games and getting 88 points, and 64 goals. He has the highest amount of goals in a season ever as well. He has won the CSSHL U15 MVP and U18 MVP, in 2019 and 2020. In 2021, he won WHL rookie of the year. He also won the U18 worlds with Team Canada, getting 7G and 7A in 7 games, for 2PPG last year.

This year, he captained the U18 Team Canada but they unfortunately lost very early. Even with the slow start this season, he finished 4^th in points with 100, and second in goals with 51 goals and 49 assists. He was only 12 points behind first place and one goal behind the goal leader. Keep in mind Bedard is only 16, which is the age for the average WHL rookie. So he is playing against people up to 5 years older than him and he dominates more than almost all of them. That’s just insane.

Connor Bedard is also very good in a different style than we’ve ever seen before. He has a wicked wrister and loves to toe drag straight into it, which would draw comparison to Auston Matthews. Then he is also insane with his puck skills and is really confident to try any move, which would draw Patrick Kane comparisons, and a little bit of Zegras or Matthews again. Plus, he has amazing hockey sense, like Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, or Wayne Gretzky.

He can skate fast enough, but I would say that’s the one area he lacks to become the NHL’s GOAT. In that case, he is more like Crosby. He can use good speed to get by people but relies more on stickhandling since he isn’t blindingly fast. However, he might not need that extra speed. Bedard’s style of play would relate the most to Matthews or Kane, in my opinion, but his places where he relates are better than Matthews’ and Kane’s skillsets in those areas. If Bedard ever starts a toe drag on a defense, you know he is going to get the puck to an area where he can wire one past the goalie, or, he might dangle the player until their ankles give way. Both have been seen multiple times. His game is very outstanding, and with some improving, could turn into the best player the game has ever seen. With still another year before he reaches the NHL, that is enough time to develop his skills into a monster.

Connor Bedard is exceptional. His stats show it, his awards show it, his style of play shows it. He is drawing comparisons to almost every great player in hockey. With one more year until his NHL journey begins, I think he has the time to improve and surpass all of them. He might just be the next GOAT.

I was gone from school on Thursday and Friday because I had Rising Stars. Rising Stars is a team of the best 2nd year ’09 from each region so I am on the Interlake team. The Interlake team normally doesn’t win any games, but last weekend we finished with a record of 1-2-1, which isn’t terrible. I had an assist and 2 goals but the ref called off both my goals because he asked the other teams goalie if it went in and obviously their goalie said no just so my goal wouldn’t count so the only stat I had that counted was my assist. We played with 3 centers, 4 sets of wingers, and 7 defenseman. I was one of the centers with Madden and Justin, but Jacob played center too.

In our first game we did not play very good. We lost to Central Plains 5-1. In our second game, we started off pretty bad in the first period but then we played really good in the second two periods and evened it out 4-4. In overtime, it was 3-on-3. I had the puck and got around the defense. I tried to take a quick shot and the goalie reached out his toe and barely saved it. Then Yellowhead, which was the team we lost to, went down and sniped a goal right after that. It was sad but it was also our first point on the Rising Stars. Our next game was against NorMan. Their best player was missing, because he was at the RHA u-15 tryout. I was going to be there too but the Rising Stars games were interfering so unfortunately I couldn’t go.

Against NorMan our team played really good. We won 5-1. It should have been 7-1, but the goalie kept lying to the ref and the ref believed him so neither of my goals counted. That was really frustrating but at least we won. Then, in our last game, we played Eastman. Last time we played them we lost 10-0. They won the City Banner so it would be really hard for our team to beat them since we are Interlake. We started off well with a few scoring chances and held them to 2-0 through the first 16 minutes. Then they scored twice more in the last two minutes, although one of the goals didn’t go in, but this time the ref decided not to ask the goalie. In the second period we played really good again and they only scored 3 goals that period. Our games were not supposed to be hitting but the refs literally called nothing besides weak trips so we were levelling Eastman kids left and right. I levelled one kid open ice and two kids on the boards in that period. To give you an idea of how the refs called nothing, when I hit someone into the boards he grabbed my head, pushed it down and then held me there and the ref didn’t care. Then I tripped him as we were leaving that scrum and the ref still didn’t care. I wouldn’t have tripped him but I’m not going to just stand there and let someone manhandle me so I had to. In the third period, we didn’t play good at all. Most of us gave up and I don’t even know the final score because they stopped putting it on the scoreboard after 9-0. All in all, though, it was a good weekend.

Here is a link to Hockey Manitoba’s website, thanks for reading.                                                            

That’s our logo.

That’s what our jerseys look like, but that’s not our team.