NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers forwards Andrew Basha and Cayden Lindstrom congratulate Tigers prospect Gavin McKenna on his first WHL point, a first period assist in the Tigers 9-1 win at Co-op Place against the Lethbridge Hurricanes on Sept. 24.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The first overall pick in the 2022 Western Hockey League prospects draft could have been made seconds after the Medicine Hat Tigers won the draft lottery: they wanted Gavin McKenna.
The Tigers winning the draft lottery and receiving the first overall pick has been chosen by the Medicine Hat News as the top sports story of 2022.
Medicine Hat entered the draft lottery on Apr. 21 with the best odds after a difficult season, which ended the week prior. They finished last in the WHL with an 11-53-3-1 record, marking their fewest wins and points in franchise history.
Tigers director of player personnel Bobby Fox says a lot of the Tigers scouting staff was sitting together and watching potential future players at the B.C. Cup during the lottery draft.
“We got to celebrate together on that, it was an exciting time for us, especially a scouting staff at the possibility to get Gavin McKenna,” Fox said.
The 2022 first overall selection was the first time the team had selected first since drafting Jay Bouwmeester in 1998 and Ryan Hollweg in 1999.
He says having the pick of the litter allowed them control and peace of mind knowing the player they wanted couldn’t be taken by anyone else.
The Tigers were coy in the time between winning the lottery in April and the draft in May about who they were selecting, but months later Fox says McKenna was the player they wanted the whole time and were looking forward to proving they were the right situation for him to develop.
“They gave us time to meet with the agents, meet with the family and meet with Gavin,” Fox said. “Gavin at the time went to Nashville for a tournament and Willie went out there to meet with them.
“We had laser focus on him and we just wanted to make sure that mutually it was going to work.”
Tigers general manager and head coach Willie Desjardins says after going through the difficult season they did, they deserved getting something good out of it. He says he didn’t really watch McKenna until they won the pick but was excited from that moment on.
“When I saw him I thought, this guy sees the ice is so well, like so well, and that’s exciting,” Desjardins said. “Then the more I got to know him and saw that he’s a good kid and he works hard, that made it even better, too.
“It (the excitement) wasn’t right away just because you have the first pick, it depends who you get. But to get somebody who’s special as that helps us.”
Getting to know his future potential top prospect and his family is a process Desjardins says he enjoyed. It started with recruiting and seeing if they were people the Tigers wanted associated with the franchise. Both were a definitive ‘yes.’
“He had tons of options, it was a tough thing to recruit him and help his family believe this was the right place for him to develop, it was big,” Desjardins said. “Then you don’t know for sure what you have because you can see what kind of a player he is but you don’t know him as a person as much.
“It’s turned out Gavin and his family are both really good. They’re not high maintenance people, they like the game, they’ve worked hard their whole life to get where they’re at. We’re very fortunate to have that.”
McKenna will become a full-time presence in the Tigers lineup next season after spending this season with the Dunmore-based South Alberta Hockey Academy.
The feeling is mutual for the now 15-year-old reflecting on seeing the Tigers get the first overall pick, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It was definitely the right thing, it’s a perfect fit for me,” McKenna said. “From the coaches, to the players and even the facilities, it’s all a great fit for me. I’m really happy that I was able to have that opportunity to get drafted first overall.”
Some other notable sport stories from 2022 were: the Medicine Hat Mavericks returning to the WCBL after a two-year hiatus and coming one game short of the league finals; the legendary Bob Ridley retiring after calling 4,022 Tigers games and calling at least one game in 53 seasons of Medicine Hat WHL action; SAHA win’s Mac’s 43rd championship in its first appearance, marking the first hockey academy to win the tournament; Medicine Hat College Rattlers cross-country runner Becky Ross finished fourth in provincials and sixth in the locally held nationals. The 35-year-old was named ACAC rookie of the year and an all conference runner.
