DRAFT HOPEFULS MIGHT MISS MEMORABLE MOMENT
Prospects waiting on NHL to make decision on ‘location, timing and format’ of event
As puck-chasing prospects, it’s a moment they have dreamed about — hearing their name called at the NHL draft, receiving hugs and handshakes, tugging that jersey over their head for the first time.
“That experience of getting to go up on stage and getting to meet the guys that drafted you and believe in you and want you on their squad, that would be something surreal,” said Airdrie-raised winger Jake Neighbours, who averaged north of a point per game — 23 goals and 47 assists in 64 twirls — this winter for the WHL’S Edmonton Oil Kings. “I’m hoping that still gets to happen.”
That’s up in the air after Wednesday’s news that the 2020 NHL draft — slated for June 26-27 at the Bell Centre in Montreal — has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the league saying in a statement the “location, timing and format” of the annual prospect pick’em would be announced once finalized.
Neighbours, pegged as a potential first- or second-rounder, had already booked his flight and secured tickets for 20-plus loved ones and supporters.
Luke Prokop, who hails from Edmonton and patrols the blue line for the Hitmen, was also planning to spend the last weekend of June in Montreal. The 17-year-old is a likely mid-round pick.
Both skated in the CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game in mid-january.
Both scored invites to the annual scouting combine, but that’s now been scrapped.
“As a kid, I would always watch the draft and even during the season, I would go back and try to figure out where players were drafted, where they went to, what round they were picked in, stuff like that,” said Prokop. “The past couple of years, it has been pretty cool to see some of my older friends and teammates and guys that I work out with and train with in the summer get drafted and see their dreams come true. It’s always been a time of year where I try to watch it and just cheer on my teammates and stuff like that. And this year, hopefully, I could have had that same experience.”
Neighbours, Prokop and a couple hundred more talented teens are now facing that uncertainty. (Other top prospects with local ties include defenceman Jake Sanderson, an Edge School alum with the USA Hockey National Team Development Program, University of Wisconsin Badgers centre Dylan Holloway and Prince Albert Raiders right-winger Ozzy Wiesblatt.) They will be drafted.
But when? Where? How?
“I’m hoping it will maybe just get moved back, not anything worse,” Neighbours said.
There’s been a steady stream of bad news this week for the next wave of NHL hopefuls.
It started with word there would be no playoffs across the Canadian Hockey League — the umbrella organization for the WHL, OHL and QMJHL — and that the Memorial Cup tournament had also been cancelled.
It continued with the postponement of the draft.