One in 2330 ~ Connor Bedard Love Story

43. The Draft

Draft day.

Although I had already participated in the biggest draft of my life, this was definitely more stressful, as I knew that everyone was expecting me to be drafted first.

Brady and I made it down to the arena and joined up with the rest of the All-Stars as we made our way onto the ice.

We were told that we were required to wear our skates-obviously- and our team's home jersey. I guess it was so people could distinguish us from everyone else. Although, I don't think it was too hard to figure out who I was as I had my hair down.

There was a huge stage and four smaller podium in front of it, I'm assuming for the four different team captains.

On the ice, there were benches for all of the draftees to sit on and four benches to the side for the chosen rosters.

I looked around, and knew that this was going to be a very interesting draft. There were six people from Vancouver in total, Quinn Hughes, Brock Boeser, Elias Pettersson, J.T Miller, Thatcher Demko and Elias Lindholm. Four people representing Toronto, Austin Matthews, Morgan Rielly, William Nylander, and Mitch Marner. Colorado also had a few representatives, such as Nathan McKinnon, Cale Makar and Alexander Georgiev. Then of course, there was Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl of Edmonton.

If the draft turns out the way I think it will, it will pretty much end ip being Team Vancouver versus Team Toronto, as Q and Jack will draft all the Vancouver players, and Matthews and Rielly will draft the Toronto players.

As for the rest of the All-Stars, there was me and Brady, the two Tkachuks. Sam Reinhardt and Sergei Bobrovsky of Florida. David Pastrnak and Jeremy Swayman of Boston. Igor Shesterkin and Vincent Trocheck of the New York Rangers.

No other team had more than two representatives- Chicago would've had two, but we all know why that didn't happen- but since each team had to have at least one representative for the All-Star games, there was Nikita Kucherov of Tampa, Cam Talbot of Los Angeles, Jesper Brady for New Jersey since Jack isn't playing, Frank Vatrano for Anaheim, Jake Oettinger of Dallas, Clayton Keller for Arizona, Matthew Barzal for the Islanders, Filip Forsberg of Nashville, Alex DeBrincat of Detroit, Sidney Crosby for Pittsburgh, Kirill Kaprizov for Minnesota, Sebastian Aho for Carolina, Tom Wilson for Washington, Travis Konecny for Philadelphia, Oliver Bjorkstrand for Seattle, Rasmussen Dahlin for Buffalo, Robert Thomas for St. Louis, Boone Jenner for Columbus, Nick Suzuki for Montréal and last but not least, Tomas Hertl for San Jose.

It was going to be interesting to see who would be drafted first.

I sat in beside Brady with Nikita Kucherov on my right as we all patiently waited for the draft to start.

"Софи, как вы думаете, кто будет задрафтован первым?" Nikita asked me. -Sophie, who do you think will be drafted first?-

"Честно говоря, я понятия не имею." I admitted. -Honestly, I have no idea.- "Все здесь потрясающие игроки, поэтому я думаю, что все будет зависеть от того, кто получит первый выбор на драфте, так как я уверен, что у капитанов есть свои предубеждения." -Everyone here is an amazing player, so I really think it will just depend on who gets the first draft pick, as I'm sure the captains have biases.-

Everyone on the ice stopped chatting as we watched David Amber and John Buccigross walked onto the large stage.

"Welcome fans in the United States and Canada. I'm David Amber and welcome into Scotia Bank Arena, home of the Toronto Maple Leafs and for the next three days, home to the brightest stars in the National Hockey League." David Amber introduced.