PHOTO COURTESY WHL
-- Jay Bouwmeester played four seasons for the Medicine Hat Tigers after being drafted first overall by the club in 1998. In 194 games donning the orange and black, Bouwmeester had 40 goals and 151 points.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
It was a long time ago, but Jay Bouwmeester still fondly remembers his time in Medicine Hat.
Bouwmeester was the first overall pick of the Medicine Hat Tigers in the 1998 WHL draft, one season before they took Ryan Hollweg in 1999.
With the Tigers picking first overall for the first time since 1999, Bouwmeester spoke with the News to reflect on being a No. 1 and his time in the Gas City.
The Edmonton product said in 1998 he wanted to play in the WHL and remembered growing up with friends whose brothers or cousins were in the Dub. The person Bouwmeester knew in the WHL was Jason Chimera, who also grew up in the south side of Edmonton and played for the Tigers.
“Chimera was a couple years older than me and I knew Jason a little bit growing up,” Bouwmeester said. “He was playing with the Tigers at the time I got drafted, so that was the progression of wanting to get to the next level. My experience was great, it’s a great little junior town and you meet so many great people.”
Bouwmeester donned the orange and black for 194 games from 1998 to 2002, putting up 40 goals and 151 points before he was picked third overall by the Florida Panthers and enjoyed his 17-year NHL career.
He said the thing that stands out the most from his WHL career in Medicine Hat is the first time he walked into the Arena and getting to be a part of a close team.
“The Smartie box with all the different coloured seats, and I’d heard about it but I had never been there before,” Bouwmeester said. “I remember walking in there like, oh this is kind of cool. You go from playing in small arenas as a kid to all of a sudden that’s the next big level and you get to play in front of more people and it’s more professional.
“I think a lot of guys look back on it and everyone’s in the same boat. It’s usually your first experience moving away from home at a really young age and you basically just hang around with each other all the time. You develop some pretty good relationships, and it’s the most time you’ll ever spend together with a team.”
When asked how he approached being a first overall pick in the WHL and what advice he would give to whoever the Tigers select in Thursday’s draft, the retired blueliner said he realized the difference between being taken first overall or second isn’t the biggest and its more about opportunity.
“It’s a nice honour and a nice accomplishment to be the first pick, and that’s great but like anything, life goes on and you kind of stick that in your pocket,” Bouwmeester said.
“The one thing about being a high pick is you’re probably going to get to play pretty quick and for a kid who’s ready, that’s a great situation to be in.”
Bouwmeester, like a lot of WHL coaches and players, says the jump from minor to major juniors is a big one and the sooner a player can make that jump, the better they can adapt.
“It is a big step, some kids might play against kids a couple of years older but when you go from being 16, to playing against some 20 year olds, there’s a lot of physical maturing that goes on over those years,” Bouwmeester said. “Like anything, you go in, and you work as hard as you can and don’t worry too much. There’s going to be pressures, and people will talk and there’s expectation, but I think anyone who’s in that position has worked pretty hard to put themselves there, and they’ve obviously become a pretty good player. It’s more of a progression, you just have to keep trying to improve and with that, hopefully the team will improve and everyone will be happy.”
Bouwmeester said the NHL Entry Draft is like the WHL draft only on a bigger scale, and when we was in the process of being drafted, players rarely knew each other outside of their own leagues. Something he told all of the younger players on his team throughout his NHL career was that they were the luckiest guys in the league at the moment.
“I always say to them, you know everyone who’s playing now because you watched them when you’re younger and you know all of the kids that you’ve played against in junior and you know the kids that are coming up,” Bouwmeester said.
“I’m like a dinosaur and I don’t know who anybody is anymore. So when you’re young, it’s fun. Everybody is always looking at previous drafts and the sort of paths that different guys have been able to take and some are successful right away while some, it takes a little bit of time. A lot of times, it depends on what sort of situation you walk into.
“Looking back on it, it more just gives you a direction of where you have to work towards. Drafts are cool too, to be able to say that you got picked high, but really it’s just a stepping stone to hopefully bigger things.”
