On the pressure, the hype, and the maturity of Connor Bedard to handle it all

At the end of the day, he's still just a 19-year-old that wants more time on the ice.

Cartoon by Sportstoons

Last October I was in Chicago for Connor Bedard’s first NHL home game at the United Center.

The then 18-year-old scored, a power play goal about 90 seconds into the game, setting off an early celebration in a season where, despite missed time for a broken jaw, Bedard won the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie.

And for me — a hockey and media nerd — one of my lasting memories was this image from the morning skate.

Bedard surrounded by a semicircle of media members, all getting impromptu bicep and tricep workouts holding microphones at arms length for nearly 10 minutes to capture precious audio.

During that scrum, after I took this picture, I walked across the room and spoke to Blackhawks forward Jason Dickinson, who I know quite well from when we were both based in Dallas.

It was less of an interview with Dickinson and more of us side-by-side watching the Bedard-sparked media circus that was a new reality in Chicago.

“Can you imagine having that type of attention, that scrum, all of that all the time?” Dickinson said to me at the time. “No one in the NHL, other than a couple guys, will ever really understand what he goes through on a daily basis.”

On Friday I caught up with Dickinson again, walking and chatting as he hurried to catch the 11:45 am team bus on the loading dock at Little Caesars Arena. We quickly caught up about the holidays, how our respective families are doing, and briefly on the current state of the Blackhawks.

Dickinson also quickly noted that through all of Chicago’s struggles, which have included a coaching change, nothing seems to phase the 19-year-old with the weight of an Original Six franchise on his shoulders.

With the Winter Classic come and gone, there is admittedly less daily hoopla around Bedard than there was in the first 18 months of his NHL career. There are fewer cameras and with media budgets slashed and the tribal nature of NHL coverage — most reporters don’t cover both teams at a morning skate — fewer reporters to crowd around Bedard on the regular.

In fact, on Friday morning, after the Blackhawks optional skate, it was my first opportunity to speak with Bedard without a dozen other reporters cramming their iPhones in for a soundbite.

And when you get Bedard in that space, without the extra cameras and flash, he instantly becomes more human, just a teenager who at his core wants to spend as much time on the ice as possible, and just spent extra time teeing up one-timers after an optional morning skate.

Tonight the storyline will be about Bedard vs. Patrick Kane, the Blackhawks savior before him now playing for Detroit, and Bedard openly chats about some of similarities and differences between their careers: how they found a fit in the NHL, and how while Kane stepped into a more decent Chicago team, Bedard is in the middle of a lengthy rebuild.

Bedard also reflects on the fact he watched Kane growing up — he wasn’t even 2-years-old yet when Kane was drafted first overall in 2007, and now Bedard is frequently playing against players that he used as inspiration growing up in Western Canada.

It’s odd to think about, but Bedard himself has already been around long enough for the next generation to try and emulate him.

At 13 he was already labeled the “future of hockey” by The Hockey News, and NHL players with kids have frequently gone out of their way to introduce him to their kids.

Last season, for example, then Red Wings forward David Perron took his son out of school for the day so the younger Perron could come to morning skate and get a picture with Bedard.

“I guess it just gets more normal, I guess,” Bedard said. “But you know, when it’s kids and you see their excitement, I think it’s something that you take the time to do, and I think that’s a cool part of the game for sure.”

Red Wings coach Todd McLellan doesn’t pretend to know what Bedard’s going through — again, no one really knows but Bedard — but McLellan was the coach of the Edmonton Oilers during the 2015-16 season when an 18-year-old Connor McDavid went through a similar NHL hype train.

“I don't know Connor Bedard personally, but Connor McDavid, I do, and his ability to put the organization on his shoulders at a young age under so much scrutiny and still be the player that he was then and has become now, is, is remarkable,” McLellan said. “The majority of the guys in the league would struggle with that.”

While it’s a circus at times, Dickinson said there are times it can become too easy for players around Bedard to take advantage of the lack of shared responsibility. While the microscope dials in on the Blackhawks because of Bedard, at the same time other players get a pass and can easily sneak out of rooms incognito because of the celebrity nearby.

That, McLellan said, is where teams need veteran players to take some of the responsibility, to help remind everyone that this celebrity is still only a teenager. It’s why the Blackhawks named Nick Foligno captain, not rushing the responsibility of the eventual “C” Bedard will wear, and why, Dickinson said the Blackhawks players will do their best to make sure others sometimes volunteer for appearances and community events that easily could be passed to the teenager.

Even with that, no one else can handle Bedard’s full scope of responsibility beyond Bedard himself. The Blackhawks were in the Winter Classic this season largely because of him, they’ll be on national TV frequently, and until the Blackhawks are good again Bedard will be the one to burden, right or wrong, how long it takes.

That’s where the moments of zen amongst the chaos matter, and why Bedard doesn’t crumble under the pressure of being the center of the NHL’s hype machine.