NEWS PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN - Medicine Hat Tigers' Bobby Fox is seen in his assistant coaching days April 7, 2017 at Canalta Centre. Fox, now the team's director of player personnel, is geared up for today's WHL draft.
It may be the players in the spotlight as the WHL bantam draft begins at 10 a.m. this morning, but for Bobby Fox and his team of scouts, it’s game day.
The Medicine Hat Tigers’ director of player personnel gets to perform the biggest part of his job as the team sets the course of its future, and to say he’s giddy would be an understatement.
“For a person in my position it’s what you look for every year and I can’t wait for it to start tomorrow,” said Fox, formerly an assistant coach with the team who was moved off the bench two years ago.
The Tigers have five picks in the first three rounds, starting with the 11th overall selection they got from trading Max Gerlach to Saskatoon in 2018.
For a league that hasn’t had any games in a month due to the pandemic, plus fans eager for something to watch from home isolation, it’s a perfect scenario. The league will broadcast the first round on YouTube, and social media will be littered with hype and analysis.
“People are sitting at home, I know my family’s sitting at home and they need something to keep track of,” said Fox. “It’s the only thing going on right now, hockey fans have to quench their thirst so it’s fun in that way. I hope people get as excited as we do about the draft.”
The Tigers say they’ll continue their mantra of picking the best player available regardless of what they might seem to need on the depth chart. A year after they had six selections in the top 60, Fox feels this is a particularly strong group of 14- and 15-year-olds to pick from.
The list is led by Connor Bedard, a Vancouver product who was granted exceptional player status by the WHL. He’s the first to earn the honour, which allows him to play full-time as a 15-year-old.
Regina will pick him first, going as far as to announce the decision and even sign Bedard to a contract Tuesday.
“He is absolutely exceptional,” said Fox of Bedard, who had 84 points in 36 games in a midget league this past season. “When Regina comes to town next year, it’s going to be a treat to watch. He’s something else, he definitely deserves the honour.”
That also means there are plenty of top picks who will still be available when it’s the Tigers’ turn on the clock.
Fox notes this draft is interesting in that most province’s bantam all-star tournaments were wiped out due to the pandemic. Saskatchewan held its top-80 event in mid-February but that was it. So all the legwork scouts did the rest of the season becomes extra important; a fact Fox seems more than happy about.
“For scouts, you get that last look, you get to prepare, you get to finalize your list,” he said of the post-season tournaments. “In a lot of senses it can hurt you in some ways because you’re putting a lot of stock into those year-end events. You get some recency bias, which sometimes isn’t the best.
“That’s why you go to rinks on a Tuesday night in the middle of November. You can watch a kid in the finals of a big tournament and hopefully they’re going to show up. But how do they play when you sneak in the back corner of a rink on a Tuesday night with just parents and friends in the crowd: how are they then? You can find out who the real hockey players are.”
He also notes that for players who aren’t picked – there are 15 rounds but Medicine Hat didn’t draft past the eighth last year – it’s no reason to be discouraged. Lots of the game’s greats were late bloomers.
“It’s a measuring stick right now but you can’t rip a kid’s chest open and see what kind of heart he has, how bad he wants it.”
