BLOG: One West Side Leader Jamyle Cannon Makes Chicago's First-Round Pick

When Senior Vice President/General Manager Stan Bowman stepped up to the podium on Tuesday night ahead of Chicago's first-round pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, he quickly acknowledged that spotlight the Draft brought to the hockey world was just as important as where that spotlight was being placed with the No. 17 pick in Chicago: the team's home neighborhood on the city's West Side.
"As One Community, we believe that what we do off the ice is as important as anything we do on it," Bowman began. "We have a very special guest joining us to make the Chicago Blackhawks first-round selection here at Fifth Third Arena, our community rink on Chicago's West Side."

2020 NHL Draft
DRAFT CENTRAL: Blackhawks' 2020 NHL Draft
BLOG: Blackhawks Select Lukas Reichel at No. 17 Overall
THE VERDICT: Blackhawks Draft Familiar Face in an Unfamiliar Draft
Jamyle Cannon
, one of the inaugural grant recipients in the
new One West Side initiative
-- a Chicago Blackhawks Foundation and A Better Chicago, where the team's charitable will invest over $2 million in five West Side non-profits over the next several years -- then stepped up to the mic and announced left winger
Lukas Reichel
as the Blackhawks' first selection.
"It was really exciting. You think, you know, you have one line, you've just got to go up and execute it," he said after the pick was made. "But you know that this is somebody's moment. You don't want to mess it up. It was great to be able to be a part of it and represent the partnership that we're forming with the Blackhawks Foundation."

As part of his night, Cannon was in the Blackhawks' war room for the entire first round. He, alongside with his wife, Juli, got to watch in real-time just feet away from the team's hockey operations staff. Along with them, he crossed names off one-by-one from the short list of first-round targets that they gave at the start of the night.
"It was cool to see a list and see names come off of that list internally," Cannon said. "I feel like I had a bit of insider information on the hopeful picks that the Blackhawks would have and then when they went away, it was like 'OK, I've got to practice this guy's name now.'"
In his day-to-day work at The Bloc,
Cannon's mission is to help young kids from the West Side reach their true potential in life
. Through the non-profit boxing program, he uses the love of boxing to provide mentorship and academic resources to Chicago's youth to help them succeed at more than just the sport they love. Despite a graduation rate of nearly 38 percent at a high school nearby, every single kid who has come through The Bloc has graduated high school and been accepted into college.

The parallel to being part of Reichel's next step in reaching his own potential held a special meaning to the 32-year-old former national champion-level boxer.
"You just love to see people succeed," he said. "Being able to reach the highest pinnacle of hockey, the highest pinnacle of your sport, you know that they've been dreaming of this since they were 3 or 4 years old and they've been putting in the work. To have it come to fruition for them today and to be a part of that, that's a special moment for me too."
And Cannon, who might now be Reichel's biggest fan in Chicago, can't wait to see the young winger try his hand in the boxing ring when he makes it stateside.
"I'm rooting for Lukas Reichel, 100 percent," he said with a laugh. "He and The Bloc are tied together. I hope to have him out to the gym at some point because I think his name is ingrained in my mind, as possibly my face is ingrained in his because of this moment in his life."