Meet the teen hockey phenom who went from a backyard Yukon rink to the top WHL draft pick
Final hockey season was an excellent one for Gavin McKenna within the Canadian Sport College Hockey League’s U18 division.
He was their high scorer with 65 factors in 35 video games.
McKenna’s excellent efficiency led to him turning into the primary total draft decide by the Drugs Hat Tigers within the upcoming Western Hockey League (WHL) season.
“I form of knew that I used to be sure to perform one thing,” McKenna mentioned from his Whitehorse house. “However, yeah, it got here fast. So, uh, it was a bit shocking.”
That is as a result of McKenna is simply 14 years outdated.
With the first-overall decide within the 2022 <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/WHLDraft?src=hash&ref_src=twsrcpercent5Etfw”>#WHLDraft</a>, the <a href=”https://twitter.com/tigershockey?ref_src=twsrcpercent5Etfw”>@Tigershockey</a> choose ahead Gavin McKenna of the <a href=”https://twitter.com/rha_kelowna?ref_src=twsrcpercent5Etfw”>@rha_kelowna</a>. <a href=”https://t.co/NyKycBbsPI”>pic.twitter.com/NyKycBbsPI</a>
—@TheWHL
In response to the CSSHL, he is simply the third participant to be granted distinctive participant standing by B.C. Hockey and Hockey Alberta, behind the WHL’s Connor Bedard and Matthew Savoie, who’s a high prospect within the 2022 NHL draft going down Thursday at 7 p.m. ET.
The standing provides gamers the uncommon privilege of coming into the WHL at such an early age.
‘Actually distinctive’
Willie Desjardins, the pinnacle coach and basic supervisor of the Drugs Hat Tigers, likes how McKenna performs, and he particularly likes how McKenna leads in scoring.
“I need to win championships,” mentioned Desjardins.
He is hoping McKenna, who turns 15 in December, can assist try this, despite the fact that WHL guidelines say he can solely play 5 video games this season due to his age.
Fourteen-year-old Gavin McKenna has grow to be the primary Yukoner to be the first high draft decide for the WHL. <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/TheMoment?src=hash&ref_src=twsrcpercent5Etfw”>#TheMoment</a> <a href=”https://t.co/rCk8qtodTh”>pic.twitter.com/rCk8qtodTh</a>
—@CBCTheNational
The 2021-2022 season noticed the Tigers are available final within the WHL’s jap convention with solely 11 wins and 53 losses.
“So we made some strikes and that is the one motive we obtained Gavin. We traded away different gamers. We obtained different picks within the first spherical.”
Desjardins says he can see McKenna’s confidence on the ice and needs to set him as much as succeed.
“I look ahead to having a man that’s excited when the sport’s on the road, and a man who needs the puck like he is not afraid to have the puck. He needs the puck. He needs to be on the market. These issues excite me a few participant.”
A former NHL coach and coach of the 2018 Canadian Olympic Males’s Hockey staff, Desjardins admits it is not fairly often he sees a participant like McKenna.
“His imaginative and prescient is de facto distinctive.”
He says it is uncommon {that a} 14 12 months outdated is chosen as the primary total decide.
Drugs Hat Tigers head coach and GM Willie Desjardins says it is Gavin McKenna’s unimaginable imaginative and prescient on the ice that made the 14-year-old the highest Western Hockey League draft decide this 12 months.
“He is obtained a number of development, a number of issues to do. He is obtained a number of issues to beat,” mentioned Desjardins.
“It is a course of. So the place he finally ends up stays to be seen slightly bit. However he is definitely nicely on his method.”
The love of the sport
McKenna’s mother and father, Willy and Krystal, each performed hockey so it was simple to cross alongside the love of the sport to their solely son, who obtained hooked at a really younger age.
Krystal remembers these years very nicely, together with early ice instances virtually each day. Not simply on the ice, however off the ice as nicely — particularly, within the basement of their outdated home in Whitehorse, which was unfurnished.
“We simply form of left it open for him. And the partitions obtained fairly broken from him taking pictures balls and pucks and stuff on the nets.”
Willy additionally constructed out of doors rinks of their yard each winter and McKenna was there, even in -30 C climate.
“My dad clearly put a number of hours into constructing it. So I must repay him by spending hours on the ice, too,” McKenna mentioned with a smile.
He additionally says taking pictures greater than 100 pucks a day in that yard all 12 months was what helped him get to the place he is at.
The household says the individuals of Whitehorse and the enterprise group assist them fundraise to allow them to journey at the least a dozen instances a 12 months to go to hockey camps and tournaments.
Krystal says they could not have accomplished it with out that assist, whether or not individuals had been shopping for raffle tickets or Christmas timber.
“Something that we had been promoting, they had been shopping for … whether or not they needed it or not. If we had been accumulating pop cans for recycling, the neighbors had been positively there.”
Making sacrifices
McKenna began travelling for hockey camps and tournaments when he was about eight. Since then, he is gone as distant as Italy and Nashville for coaching, and most just lately Detroit.
“We did not actually have a selection,” Krystal mentioned of the choice to let their son journey for hockey. “He did not actually have numerous competitors right here. So we knew that he wanted to be challenged.”
Willy says he is pleased with how far his son has come.
“He has to work tougher than numerous teenagers. However on the identical time, he is assembly so many various individuals. He is making so many various buddies.”
Final season, McKenna attended the RINK Hockey Academy in Kelowna, B.C., the place he obtained every day ice and health club time — and obtained scouted by the WHL.
“There’s a number of stress coming from being a primary total decide,” he admitted. “Simply enjoying with older guys, much more expert guys, faster guys, stronger guys. I am nervous, however I am additionally excited to have this chance.”
McKenna, who is aware of it is not a chance most 14-year-olds get, is spending his summer season at house in Whitehorse coaching for his WHL debut — the Tigers’ season opener towards the Lethbridge Hurricanes on Sept. 24.
