PROVING GROUND
I t’s the wave of minor movement that washes through the stands every time Connor Bedard gets hold of the puck that shows you, in the simplest, purest of ways, the impact he’s had on this city. It’s the knowing looks in the crowd, the held breath, the shifting in preparation to jump out of a seat. The signs fans here have been astonished by No. 98 so many times, they’re now physically conditioned to expect greatness every time he touches the ice.
It’s mid-February, and I’m seven rows up at Regina’s Brandt Centre, encircled by Pats fans. A month after the presumptive 2023 first-overall pick dominated on the world stage, claiming World Juniors gold and an MVP nod to boot, adoration for the 17-year-old has hit a fever pitch in this town. There are Bedard jerseys on all sides, everywhere I look. Some are legitimate, others have ‘BEDARD’ ruthlessly scrawled with permanent marker on a piece of tape covering another player’s name. Some adorn fans who seem to have weathered decades in these stands, others are draped over spectators so young their legs dangle off their seats, the crests on their sweaters speckled with cotton candy fuzz and popcorn flakes.
Early in this bout with the Winnipeg Ice, Bedard flies up the sheet and stops on a dime, uses the brief moment of space created to execute a silky dish. To my left, one row down, two fans share a look, like they’ve seen this preamble before. A little while later, the young phenom races toward the wall, beelining for a heavier opponent who’s got the puck. To my right, a few rows up, cries of “Get him, Bedsy!” ring out, followed by emphatic applause when their boy wins the battle. The building moves as No. 98 moves. Every time he steps onto the ice, the six thousand in these seats seem to lean forward as one, like the plastic and concrete beneath us are tilting toward the sheet, just a bit.
The energy in the stands swells as the night wears on. Bedard seems as restless as the crowd around him for whatever’s coming. Between shifts, he stands on the bench surveying, waiting for enough time to tick away so he can leap back into the fray. Late in the first period, he’s tagged for interference and marched to the penalty box. He stands there, too, hunched against the glass, leaning on his stick, for the entire two minutes.
Midway through the night, the Brandt Centre faithful finally get what they came for. It’s 2-1 Pats. A roughing minor’s put Regina on the back foot, gifting Winnipeg a golden opportunity to level the score, and they seem on the cusp of doing just that. The Ice’s two first-round gems — 2022 ninth-overall pick Matthew Savoie and 2022 11th-overall pick Conor Geekie — play catch along the right wall of Regina’s zone. Spying an opening, Savoie whips the puck towards the crease for Geekie to redirect on net. But it pops back out into the slot, and lands on Bedard’s stick. He turns.
He’s deep in his own zone, near the left faceoff dot, with open ice in front of him. For most in this situation, those extra feet of space are an invitation for a safe clear. For Bedard, they’re a runway. He pivots and takes off, pushing Ice defenders back, scanning as he presses up the right side of the ice and crosses into Winnipeg’s zone. He cuts to his left. A streaking teammate, Tanner Howe, now beside him, takes the cue and cuts right. They overlap in the heart of the opposing zone, and here, in this moment, Bedard’s genius takes flight.
Howe crosses in front of him, briefly obscuring No. 98 from view of the Ice defenceman who’s about to be on the wrong side of this highlight. In the half-breath of space granted by the diversion, Bedard pulls the puck back, two feet behind him. By the time he’s one-on-one with the defender again, Bedard’s already midway through a toe-drag. He feathers the puck through his own legs and hops over a skate, the blue-liner’s stick trapped helplessly on the wrong side of the sequence. He lands on one foot, emerging unscathed with the puck and a clear path to the net.
Knowing looks. Held breath. Shifting in seats.
Another Ice defenceman throws a stick into his path, but Bedard’s already flipping a first attempt on net, then reaching back in, then stuffing home the rebound.
The crowd erupts, all that anticipation finally turning to reaction. Hands, flags and beer cans hit the air. Bedard drops to one knee, bellowing a “Let’s go!” to the teammates mobbing him. The goal is his 51st of the season, tying the career-best mark he set last year. When the campaign wraps a month from this moment, he’ll have amassed 71 goals and 143 points in all, both marks pacing the entirety of the CHL.
Behind me, a young fan and his father are on their feet. When they settle, the boy muses on their talisman’s talent. “You know what, Dad? I would love to see Connor Bedard versus Connor McDavid, one-on-one,” he says. “Just to see who would score first.”
Such are the mythic heights Regina’s own Connor has reached in this town.
Barring something unimaginable, Bedard has played his last game as a Regina Pat. Later this week, it’s all-but-certain the generational pivot will be selected with the No. 1 pick at the 2023 NHL Draft, and begin a new life in Chicago. But for the city he leaves behind, his presence won’t soon be forgotten. For those who haven’t spent time in Saskatchewan, it may be difficult to fully understand the depth of the bond formed over Bedard’s three years in Regina — a city that allowed him enough quiet, enough calm, to become the phenom he was expected to be; a city that helped raise him as he navigated a wild, meteoric ascent; a city to whom he gave an experience like nothing it had ever seen, like it might never see again.
This is the story of Connor Bedard the Prairie Hero, and the three-year run that shaped one of the most promising prospects the game has ever seen.
T he first time Bedard touched the ice, as a kid back in his hometown of North Vancouver, he wasn’t feeling it. “I think my first skate was a power-skating thing,” he says. “You’re kind of just skating around. I didn’t love it at first.”
We’re huddled around a table in the bowels of the Brandt Centre a few nights after that Winnipeg game, in the wake of another home tilt. Bedard’s clad in a navy Pats t-shirt and black shorts, his hair parted neatly in the middle like always, as he ponders the beginning of his wild journey on the ice. It’s an apt night for it: a few hours earlier, he skated out to the middle of the rink with his mom Melanie at his side, posing for photos before the club’s Family Day game.
“I got a puck the next day,” he says, when asked what changed after the power-skating debacle. “That’s when I fell in love with it. Just the creativity, the stuff you can do out there. Ever since then, it’s been the same feeling.”
Jon Calvano first met Bedard when the phenom was five years old. The veteran coach is a mainstay in North Vancouver, having worked with plenty of marquee NHLers who’ve come out of B.C. over the past couple of decades. “Like most five-year-olds, he was really excited about playing hockey,” the coach remembers. “You know, just a young kid that was really excited to play, and learn the game, and always wanted to get better. And hated losing.”
Even in the early years, there was a sense of quiet focus about Bedard, Calvano says. And a quiet confidence, too, potent enough for him to be bold on the ice but buried deep enough for him to rarely boast off it. “He was always a very quiet kid, but a happy kid,” Calvano says. “You know, a little bit shy, which could be perceived still now. But very humble as he got older, with who he was becoming, with his dominance in minor hockey in the British Columbia hockey circuit throughout the years.”
That humility still seems to be there now as Bedard looks down at the table and smiles politely when asked if there was a moment he knew he had something different than the kids around him in his hometown. “I mean, I never thought about it like that too much,” he says of standing out back when he was collecting 60-goal, 80-point campaigns in 30-game seasons. “I think I was always just playing for, you know, my love of the game. It was all I wanted to do, whether it was at home playing mini-sticks, or on the ice, or whatever. That’s all I wanted to do.”
As Calvano and Bedard continued to work together over the years — the pair still skate together in the off-season — the coach saw first-hand the impact of that all-encompassing love for the game, how it fuelled the journey that turned a precocious five-year-old into a promising talent. “I’ve been around a lot of younger players that have turned into NHL greats and stars. So, you know, watching Connor at five, six, seven, all the way up to when he was 13 or 14, before everybody knew about him, he had all the similarities and traits of all the guys that have gone before him that have had success in the National Hockey League,” Calvano says. “Every skill that he had then, he has now — except for his shot, because that just came with strength.”
It was when Bedard hit double digits that the weight of his potential crystallized for Calvano, though. “The summer of 2015, I’d say it was about August — he would’ve just turned 10 — I brought him out with a few of my younger pros and NHL guys, just to kind of skate and be around those players,” the coach remembers. “There was no shyness in Connor, jumping into a drill with them or giving them a pass, or any of that.
“The ability for Connor, from the age of 10 years old, to start skating with players like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins or Morgan Rielly or Mat Barzal or Danton Heinen, you know, he just fit right in.”
Those prospects-turned-NHL stars echoed the coach’s sentiment. “They appreciated his talent and his ability and his hockey mind, and really celebrated that with a young Connor,” Calvano says. “He was always a quiet kid, an observant kid, and he took a lot from those older guys and their games.”
Not everything back home in B.C. was always so rosy, though. While Bedard’s early dominance drew plenty of praise, support and expectation, there was another side of the coin he and his family had to navigate in those early years, too.
“Quite honestly, as Connor was developing success, I think [there was] a lot of jealousy from parents, and that was transferred to the kids. I think Connor had to deal with a little bit of that,” Calvano says. “And he did a really good job at it. His mom and dad did a fantastic job of isolating him from the negative noise from other people around his age, or a few years older, who were, you know, potentially jealous that he was on the road to being the one to make it out of the group — meaning the group from B.C., or from Western Canada.
“You know, if you go back in time, there’s on average one or two B.C. kids per birth year that really can play in the NHL. Obviously, Connor is in that fast track to be the one, to not only play but potentially do some great things.”
In March 2020, the first of those great things took shape. Following in the footsteps of John Tavares and Connor McDavid, the young West Vancouver Academy star was granted exceptional player status by Hockey Canada, opening the door for him to play junior hockey as a 15-year-old.
For the wider hockey world, the step cemented Bedard as the next in a line of rare, elite junior hockey talents. But for many in Western Canada, it meant something more. Because while Bedard became the seventh player in CHL history to earn the distinction, he was the first to ever be granted that status out west, in the WHL.
A day after making that bit of history, Bedard finally learned where he’d begin the pivotal next chapter of his hockey life, as the results of the 2020 WHL Bantam Draft Lottery came in. The next part of his journey would come a couple provinces over, in the heart of the prairies.
T he moment Bedard first laid eyes on the building that was to house his WHL legacy, it wasn’t the weight of the moment or the new pressures heaped on his shoulders that struck him. It was the paint job. “I was surprised the building was orange,” he says with a laugh, thinking back to his first day in Regina. “It was different. I’d never seen that.”
The Halloween vibe of his new home barn was hardly the only thing that was different about Bedard’s first foray into the WHL. His debut game for the Pats came a year to the day after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the WHL to suspend, and ultimately cancel, its 2019-20 season. The league returned for what was to be Bedard’s rookie year in 2020-21, but not in a form recognizable to the junior hockey faithful. Instead of 68 games, teams played just 24. Instead of travelling to face clubs across the country, newly aligned divisions were formed, hubs that housed teams from around the area — for Regina, this meant the seven WHL teams from Saskatchewan and Manitoba all playing out of that orange Regina rink. And instead of a title hunt, the campaign was officially dubbed a “developmental season.” No champion was crowned.
Still, for a bright-eyed Bedard, it was a dream. “When I got in the rink, it was super nice. I mean, I love it,” he says. “You know, obviously the first year [there were] no fans, so it was a little different, but it was pretty cool. We were in the dorms and with the guys every day, so it was a lot of fun.” As everyone else around the junior hockey world was trying to get their heads around what this new season would look like, Bedard was still getting over the thrill of simply beginning this novel journey. “I’d never been to Saskatchewan at all, so all that was super new to me,” he says. “I’d heard a lot, obviously. It’s a very storied franchise, and everything they’ve done, their long history, is pretty cool. So when I was drafted, I was super, super stoked.”
John Paddock, the longtime general manager of the Pats, who returned to the bench as head coach of the club during Bedard’s second season, remembers that excitement the first time their No. 1 pick took to the ice as a member of the club. “He was clearly a step above everybody else,” Paddock says. “I remember talking to [then-head coach] Dave Struch after practice. He said, ‘What do you think?’
“I said, ‘Well, the 15-year-old looks like a 20-year-old, and the 20-year-old looks like a 15-year-old.’ That’s what he was. You could tell that he was the most talented player on the ice.”
Then came gameday. His first chance to show the hockey world, already abuzz with chatter about the next Next One, what he could do. “I was nervous, excited,” Bedard remembers. “You know, for me, it was just — I tried to think of it as another game, but obviously that’s tough when it’s your first. You want to do well. I was super excited, but there was definitely a lot of nerves. … It was just a cool opportunity for me to finally get to play in the league. It was obviously a dream as a kid, so I was just excited to get it going.”
It took 25 minutes for Bedard to make good on the hype; for him to take the puck out behind his own net, fly end-to-end, float past a defender, and wire home his first WHL goal. Across the airwaves, the Pats’ announcing crew marked the moment: “Connor Bedard has arrived!”
“It was a little bit of a blur, but I remember it — I was super excited,” Bedard says. “You know, to get your first — I was pretty happy it was in that game, just to kind of get it out of the way and not have to think about it. I was really stoked. I had three 20-year-olds on the ice, and our captain, so it was pretty cool to be on with those guys and see their excitement for me.”
He added another goal that night, scoring his second career tally 47 seconds after the first. By the time the brief campaign was done, he’d collected 12 in 15 games, along with a rookie of the year trophy. He had 51 goals through 62 games the same time a year later, 71 through 57 the next. That those totals rose so sharply, and finished where they did, was the result of more than natural progression. It took focus, and hours, and sweat.
“He’s always working at it,” Paddock says. “In the off-season, during the season, he’s working at getting better. He’s trying different things to get better. He’s a hockey guy 24/7. That in itself is not unique, but it’s pretty special when you’re a super talented guy.”
The result is a skillset unrivaled among fellow prospects, a skillset potentially unrivaled among anyone in the game over the past few decades not named Connor McDavid or Sidney Crosby. Such are the expectations already facing Bedard. But ask those who understand the nuance of what he’s doing out on the ice as he weaves through traffic and whips unstoppable wristers into the twine, and those expectations seem justified.
“He’s exceptional,” says Brennan Othmann, a Team Canada teammate of Bedard’s who the New York Rangers selected 16th overall in 2021. “His shot’s just super elite — we all talk about it, all the time. … He completely pulls that stick out as far as he can and then drags it in, which is super impressive. I’ve never seen anyone else do it like that. I know a lot of guys with good shots, but that guy can really shoot the puck.”
“His shot is just crazy,” adds fellow Team Canada star, and third-overall Anaheim Ducks pick, Mason McTavish. “He doesn’t even need that much power or energy to shoot, he’s just shot so many times.”
And yet, to focus too much on Bedard’s all-world wrister would be to misunderstand his effectiveness as a player. “You know what, I think the best part about Bedsy’s game is that he’s an all-around player. I think that’s something super underrated that everyone overlooks,” Othmann continues. “It’s, ‘His shot’s great, his playmaking’s great’ — but he’s an all-around player. If you watch closely, he hits, he gets under guys’ skin. He can shoot the puck, he can pass it, but he also makes some good blocked shots.”
Says 2020 third-round Detroit Red Wings pick, defenceman Donovan Sebrango, who had to line up opposite Bedard during Team Canada practices: “I mean, he’s a special player. I don’t think you can really find a weakness to his game.”
Canvas others who’ve played with Bedard or watch him at the Brandt Centre and you’ll catch other things, too — his ability to see the game three steps ahead; the way he elevates the players around him; his skating, not grounded in all-out speed, but in an efficiency that puts him in the right spaces at the right times.
Calvano, who’s seen every iteration of Bedard’s game as it’s progressed, summarizes it aptly.
“What makes Connor dangerous as a hockey player is that he’s got the triple-threat effect that most players don’t have,” the coach says. “He can beat you with a perimeter shot, he can beat you with a dangle, and he can beat you with a pass. So, for a defender or a goalie, it’s very hard to understand or read what his actual decision-making process is. Which gives him the upper hand.”
I f you’ve never spent time in Saskatchewan, never sat in the stands of a community rink and felt firsthand the love of the game that runs through the place, it might be difficult to understand just how much hockey means to the province. And just how much Bedard means, too.
Todd Liskowich has been embedded in Regina’s hockey community for decades, coaching young players in the city since the ’90s. “It’s a large hockey community here,” he says. “We have a huge number of people that volunteer a ton of time to make things work.” For as long as he can remember, the Pats have been the heart of that community. “They have an important role in the community — a lot of the youth look up to the players, they want to be a Regina Pat, they want to play in the Western Hockey League. … The organization has had a huge history in the city. It’s gone through different ownership groups over the years, but it’s always been a mainstay for our local sports community.”
Outside of the city, it’s much the same. Nolan Kowal’s spent the past few years as a play-by-play voice for games throughout Saskatchewan, splitting his time between Pats broadcasts in Regina, others for the local junior league a few hours south in Estevan, and more still in towns dotted throughout the province. “I’ve done some senior hockey here as well, in smaller communities like Carnduff and Redvers and Carlyle. The crowds they get for a playoff game are massive,” he says. “In those smaller communities especially, everything kind of centres around the hockey rink. In terms of the volunteers and the community, it’s a gathering place.
“Hockey’s massive on the prairies. And obviously when you introduce a guy like Connor Bedard here, people are going to want to go watch him play.”
The city has seen elite talents in Pats jerseys before, it’s seen Stanley Cup champions return home with the trophy. But the past few years have felt different, eclipsing anything Liskowich has ever seen in Regina. “There have been a lot of very, very high-quality and high-end hockey players that have come out of our community over a number of years, and, you know, I wouldn’t take anything away from any of them. But Connor has just created a certain buzz,” he says. “There was a void, when we didn’t have that. And he’s [filled] it. I’m not sure what it is, but he’s definitely energized the youth, he’s definitely created some more excitement.”
That excitement has spilled out of the Brandt Centre stands into every corner of the province’s hockey community, including youth training programs like Liskowich’s. “The numbers have grown in the last two years, progressively. I think Connor Bedard’s excitement definitely contributed to that,” he continues. “Certainly he’s created a spark in the eyes of a lot of individuals, in the youth, in these players.
“But you know what? It’s not just the kids that have got this buzz. It’s the dads, the mums, the hockey fans around here — I’ve got people calling me and saying, ‘Hey, do you got any extra tickets? I haven’t been to a Pats game for a while and I want to see this guy before he’s gone.’ There’s just a ton of excitement around the whole game.”
For the young players in the city, the ones who aspire to one day wear a Pats jersey, the obsession with the local superstar is something else. “It’s nonstop,” Liskowich says. “Teams come in here all winter long, individuals come in here, and there’s never a time when there’s not somebody asking about Connor Bedard’s shot, [saying] ‘I want to shoot like Connor Bedard, I want to shoot like Connor Bedard!’ They’re wearing 98 — there’s 98s everywhere. The kids just can’t get enough of it, they just love it. You know, I have a few pictures breaking down his shot, showing the kids his body posture and hand position and how he transfers weight. We use him as a guide. Because the kids look at him and they want to be like him.”
Bedard has felt that love. Both on the ice and away from the rink he’s felt the city’s all-encompassing support. “I think just, the people are so nice,” Bedard says. “You know, you go around and everyone’s so accepting of everyone. For someone new to the community, obviously that’s very comforting. With myself and with our team, they’ve been so, so supportive of us.”
Looking ahead to the maelstrom that will soon come for Bedard, when he moves Stateside to a city 10 times Regina’s size and steps into the chaos of the NHL as a first-overall saviour, there might not have been a better junior-hockey spot for the teenager to land than Regina — a city that gave him enough space to become what he’d hoped, and enough passion to spur him on as he did.
“It goes back to John Paddock and Dave Struch,” says Liskowich. “They’ve done a great job with Connor right from the get-go, and I don’t know if that gets enough attention. I think they deserve a lot of credit for making Connor feel at home, making his family a part of the community, making him comfortable to focus on the sport that he loves. That organization has done a great job to make that happen. And of course, Connor’s embraced it. And kudos to him for wanting to be a Regina Pat for as long as he could.
“He really has enjoyed the community. But the community has really, really enjoyed him, that’s for sure.”
There was a night earlier this year that stands out for people in this city when you ask about the bond between Regina and its No. 98. In the waning weeks of winter, the city built an outdoor rink on the frozen Wascana Lake and invited 40 young players from the local Ranch Ehrlo Society Outdoor Hockey League for an evening skate. The kids were milling about the ice, unsuspecting, when the Pats arrived.
“They could hear a bus pull up, and a horn honking, and one by one the Regina Pats players came out,” remembers Ryan Whippler, director of outreach for the province’s Provincial Capital Commission, which organized the event.
“There is no way Bedard’s here!” one of the kids yelped in disbelief, he and his mates gathering by the boards and watching intently as each Pat stepped off the bus, before finally seeing the one they were waiting for.
“It was just a really special moment. The excitement from the kids was pretty neat to be around, watching as reality sunk in that the Regina Pats and Connor Bedard were there,” Whippler continues. But what struck him most was the excitement from Bedard and the Pats, too, skating around with the kids, taking pictures, showing them how to do this or that with the puck. “When it was time to go, and the Pats president had gone out to let them know it was time to head back, the players were having so much fun they stayed for an extra 30 minutes. Just to have some more fun with the kids.
“It was just a really nice, fun, wholesome, very Saskatchewan, hockey moment.”
I f the people of Regina were smitten with Bedard during his first couple years in the city, by the time he returned from the 2023 World Juniors, they were flat-out head-over-heels.
The Pats captain was already a household name in hockey circles when he entered the tournament, already a junior hockey star and a two-time Team Canada gold medalist, having collected U-18 gold in 2021 and another at his first World Juniors in 2022. But wearing the maple leaf at that 2023 Halifax-Moncton tournament, it all hit a new level. “How dominant he was in that tournament, some of the plays he made — I remember one pass when he dove onto his stomach, changed the grip on his stick, and made a saucer pass over a defender,” says Kowal. By the tournament’s end, that dominance had earned Canada another gold, and had earned Bedard — with an absurd 23 points in seven games, nine more than the next highest scorer in the tournament — MVP honours.
“It was really neat to see that, because people that watch the World Juniors, they’re not always paying close attention to the teams these guys are on. They’re not always following the WHL super closely, or the OHL, or wherever the guys are from. It was kind of a coming-out party for him in that sense, to really show what he could do on the international level,” says Kowal.
The weight of those moments, on that stage, wasn’t lost on Bedard himself. “You know, just even in practice, putting on that jersey, looking down and seeing the Canada crest was a special memory,” he says. “Just being able to be with those guys, obviously the best players in the world, and win with them has been unreal.”
And then he went home, and it all got even wilder. His first game back in Regina, Bedard stacked four goals and a pair of assists on the Calgary Hitmen. More than 4,700 fans packed the Brandt Centre that night, the biggest crowd of the season to that point. The next game, there were a thousand more in the stands, and a few games later, another thousand. “The buzz and the crowds got even bigger after that tournament,” remembers Kowal. “The crowds that I’ve seen in Regina in January and in February, I mean, those are the biggest crowds that I’ve seen for Pats games since I’ve been here.” When the team went out on the road, it was the same story, culminating in an unforgettable night in front of 17,000 fans at Calgary’s Scotiabank Saddledome — Bedard’s first taste of what life in the big leagues might feel like.
“We got so much support in away buildings and here as well — obviously Calgary was pretty crazy, how many people were there,” Bedard says. “When you go and see every seat taken, and hear that, it’s pretty cool for all of us. That’s been pretty special. You know, you feel it from the country. You remember when you were a kid watching the World Juniors, how invested the whole country is. For me, to be able to be a part of that has been unbelievable.”
For Paddock, the man who brought Bedard to Regina, who’s seen every stage of his journey, it’s been something of a blur as the hype around his young phenom hit unseen heights over these recent months. “It’s like he’s a rockstar,” he says. “He probably can hardly go anywhere.”
And yet, talk to those who’ve been close to Bedard throughout this liftoff to stardom, talk to the teenager himself, and ‘rockstar’ isn’t a word that describes how Bedard carries himself.
For his longtime coach, Calvano, there’s a moment from last year that sums up his perspective on Bedard’s character. “My actual biggest memory of Connor has nothing to do with his play on the ice,” he says. “It was last year at the under-18s, when they were in Germany.” That 2022 tournament wasn’t the easiest of experiences for Bedard and his squad — though he led the Canadians in scoring with seven points through the four games he played, his side failed to medal, ousted in the quarter-finals in an overtime heartbreaker. Still, amid all of that, Bedard got word from Calvano that the coach’s young son was working on a school project in which he’d been asked to focus on a local Canadian icon. He’d chosen Bedard. So, naturally, Bedard sorted out the time difference and hopped on FaceTime. “You know, not too many players of that stature, that status, especially being in Germany, take 10 minutes for a seven-year-old kid’s school project,” Calvano says. “It just defines the person he actually is and, I believe, the type of NHL star he’s going to be. … He doesn’t forget where he comes from.”
Back in that room buried in the Brandt Centre, months before the draft that will make Bedard the new face of hockey in Chicago, the end of our conversation gives me that same sense of the teenager. That despite his meteoric ascent, he may still be the quiet, conscientious kid he was when Calvano first met him more than a decade ago.
When we finish speaking and say our goodbyes, Bedard walks halfway out of the room, then turns back, and seeing he’d forgotten to, returns to dutifully push in his chair. He pauses, looks around for a moment, then pushes in two others nearby, before finally giving a nod and heading back to the locker room.
B edard’s next chapter beckons. The bright lights of the big leagues are calling.
If it is time to move on from Regina for good, he’ll leave the city having given it all he could on the ice. Especially this past season: on the heels of his dominant 2022-23, the 17-year-old made history by becoming the first CHL player to be awarded the league’s top three trophies, winning Player of the Year, Top Scorer, and Top Prospect of the Year. On the national team side, he was no less historic, earning the IIHF’s inaugural Male Player of the Year award for 2023, too.
For Paddock, who’s been part of the Pats organization for the past decade, after an NHL career that saw him coach Hall of Famers like Daniel Alfredsson, Teemu Selanne and Phil Housley, there’s no overstating the impact Bedard has had on the franchise. “He’s just got a higher level individually. … I mean, I think it’s higher than anybody that’s ever played here,” Paddock says. “Individually, they don’t touch what Connor was. They were excellent players, but we’re talking about a first-overall pick. We’re talking about somebody who’s talked about as generational, as game-changing. He’s a driven, hungry player, who has great talent.
“He hasn’t done anything but show that the possibility people talk about is more than likely true.”
Still, for Bedard, as much as anything that played out on the ice, it’s the city and all those people in the stands that he’ll remember when the time comes to leave Regina. “I’m trying to not look too far in the future,” he says. “But you look back, and you remember your junior career, obviously. I’ve just been so fortunate to be able to be here, with these guys, in this community. You know, I couldn’t be more thankful for that. I’ve had so much fun. … It definitely feels like a second home. It’s different than Vancouver in some ways, but I think the people are similar, just how accepting they are, how comfortable they make you.
“It’s been unreal to be able to play here, and have that support, and feel that every day. I’m super grateful for that.”
The city he leaves behind seems plenty grateful, too. Grateful they were able to be part of the type of hockey story that’s rarely passed through the province before. Grateful they were able to be the second home Bedard needed to grow into the prolific talent he’s become.
“I think it means a lot for the city,” Kowal says. “I was in the media room before one of the games, and I overheard an older scout say Bedard is the best player he’s ever seen in the league. And this guy had obviously seen a lot of hockey in his career. So, I think he’s going to leave a legacy, and that legacy will grow even in the future years, because he’s going to be a star in the NHL, too. Will he be on Connor McDavid or Sidney Crosby’s level? Who knows, we’ll find out.
“But these kinds of players don’t come along every year. And the more he does in his career, it’ll just enhance his legacy here. Because people here will always be able to say they got to watch him play.”
Bedard’s hopes for his prairie legacy are much simpler. Whether he’s eventually seen as the greatest player to ever wear a Pats jersey, to ever play in the WHL, to ever come from the West, is secondary. Asked how he hopes Regina will remember him when he moves on, he pauses for a moment.
“A good person, first and foremost,” Bedard says. “Someone who gave back to them, someone they appreciate. And just a competitor. Someone who gave it their all, all the time.
“You know, if they can look at me in those two ways, then that would be pretty good.”