Bedard return to hometown with Blackhawks has Vancouver buzzing

NORTH VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Connor Bedard wasn’t sure of the exact number.

The Chicago Blackhawks forward is preparing to play for the first time as an NHL player in Vancouver, just across the water from his hometown of North Vancouver. Needless to say, it’s a popular ticket among his family and friends.

“It’s not crazy but I’ll be paying to play for a night,” Bedard said with a smile about Chicago’s game against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena on Saturday (10 p.m. ET; CBC, SN, CITY, TVAS2, CHSN). “No, but it’ll be good to have some people there.”

Some people?

Actually, this area has been buzzing for Bedard’s return ever since last season, when the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft was unable to play in Vancouver on Jan. 22 because of a broken jaw he suffered two weeks earlier.

And why not? Those in this area who coached him, played with him and watched him grow from a kid who fell the first time on the ice to one of the most talented, hardest-working players around, can’t wait to see the 19-year-old in person wearing an NHL uniform.

“This time around, it’s funny how even in minor hockey how many people talk about it, how parents have been talking for months about Connor coming back,” said Clint Colebourn, who first coached Bedard in 2016-17 at North Shore Winter Club, an athletic club in North Van to which the Bedard family belongs.

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North Vancouver, which sits above Vancouver Harbor and Burrard Inlet, has a population of approximately 64,000. It’s about a seven-mile drive from downtown Vancouver or a 12-minute trip on the SeaBus that connects the downtown Waterfront to Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver.

It's a beautiful blend of water, mountains, trails in and around the smaller city, which has its share of hilly streets and avenues. It’s “Vancouver Light,” really, with plenty of bucolic surroundings and a more intimate downtown setting compared to its more bustling neighbor to the south.

“That’s a perfect way to describe it,” Steve Marr, who coached Bedard with the West Vancouver Warriors, told NHL.com at Vomero Coffee House in North Vancouver on Thursday. “Being in North Van, you don’t feel like you’re not in Vancouver in terms of, if you want to go downtown, it’s not that hard. But there’s a bit of a small-town feel to North Van and I think part of that is just that you are kind of protected by the mountains and I think that’s the safeguard between the small town and a giant city.”

North Vancouver is also the home of Grouse Mountain and the Grouse Grind, a 2.5 kilometer (approximately 1.55-mile) hike up the face of the mountain that’s nicknamed “Mother Nature’s Stairmaster.”

Former Canucks forward Daniel Sedin, who was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame with brother Henrik in 2022, did the Grouse Grind 11 times in one day at the Multi-Grouse Challenge (where participants ran the Grind as many times as possible from dawn to dusk) in June 2023.

Bedard has done the Grind a few times including in September, when he finished it in 37 minutes.

“He's never beaten me (on that) but he’s getting close as I age and he gets in better shape,” said the 40-year-old Marr.

North Vancouver is where Bedard would first hit the ice at age 3, then literally hit the ice and was in no immediate hurry to get back on it.

“There was no equipment, and of course you can’t skate (well at 3). We’re like, ‘Oh, he doesn’t like this too much,’” said Connor’s father, Tom. “But I find with kids, once you can fall and it doesn’t hurt, of course it was a lot more fun. So you have some gear on and a stick to balance, it becomes a lot more fun. At least it did for him.”

Bedard also did a lot of shooting and stick work around his house in the Lynn Valley neighborhood of the city.

“Me and him, when he was little, our neighborhood was flat and he could do a lot of inline stuff with the puck and shoot and skate,” Tom said. “It’s something similar. It’s not exact but we were able to practice, and he did a lot on his own and with me. He just took to the game in that way.”

But when you walk around North Vancouver, you won’t see signs saying, “Home of Connor Bedard” or anything like that. Marr said Bedard is certainly embraced by his hometown but more so by the larger community.

“I’m just talking to you about how intimate North Van is in relevance to the city but then at the same time, the city itself kind of adopts the successes that come from here and get labeled as just the city of Vancouver,” Marr said. “So I think with how special of a story Connor’s been, it’s easy for someone in Surrey to be proud and consider him a local boy as much as where he grew up in North Van.

“It would be a different story if he was from a town like Kamloops or Kelowna that’s three hours away from here. I think that town would be like, ‘No, he’s ours.’ But in Vancouver, it’s more of the status of our whole city.”

That seems appropriate, because Bedard has spent his life skating in various places in the surrounding area. There’s Canlan Sports North Shore, about a five-minute drive from the NSWC. Then there’s Scotia Barn by Canlan Sports, and Burnaby Winter Club in Burnaby, about 20 minutes south of North Vancouver; and Planet Ice in Coquitlam, west of Vancouver.

But NSWC is the primary place for him.

“Once March rolled around, they left the ice in the facility and if you were a member, you could use that ice most times of the day. So a lot of the kids would use that ice and they would have games,” Tom said. “They would do it themselves, pick-up games, which was a huge thing if you used it to develop, right, because you could be on the ice right through the summer, on your own if you wanted. And he did. He used it quite a bit.”

Indeed, there’s plenty of ice at NSWC, where Bedard is the latest player listed on the club’s “Winterhawks in the Pros” Wall of Fame. On the main floor there’s a full-size and 2/3-rink and downstairs there’s another 2/3-sheet of ice and ¼-ice shooting area.

“There are never any kids’ practices (downstairs), so it’s open and anyone can come out, as long as they’re a member,” former NHL forward Kyle Turris, now director of hockey at NSWC, told NHL.com on Friday.

Bedard is known for his very stoic, buttoned-down personality but it was at NWSC where Colebourn saw Bedard’s true colors. Literally.

“He used to wear jorts and you’d see him out there with long socks, wearing his hoodie and stuff and shooting pucks. And back in the day, Connor used to wear really colorful laces. He’d go from light blue to red to green,” he said. “It was very funny how he wanted to be the same, but he just wanted something that stood out about himself other than the hockey he was doing on the ice.”

And no matter where Bedard skates, it’s usually a familiar story.

“Crowds,” said Jon Calvano, program director of Elite Level Development and general manager of the North West Giants Midget AAA team who’s worked with Bedard since he was 5. “On Sundays at north shore it’s packed, little kids running around.

“They run a lot of camps here (at Scotia Barn) so a lot of kids gravitate to watch him. He’s handling it, from what I’ve seen, well. I think like anything, he’s just trying to get better and it’s that balance of time you give to fans. He’s working through that.”

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Bedard got an early glimpse of NHL players at age 10, when Calvano threw him on the ice with those who were already in the League or about to break into it. The group included New York Islanders forward Mathew Barzal, Edmonton Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Montreal Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher and Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly.

“It was just like, he was not fazed,” Calvano said. “He was just another player doing a drill, shooting the puck against 20-year-old guys and there was no comprehension of age difference.”

The unfazed attitude was there again when Calvano brought Bedard, then 14, to “Boys of Summer,” a 4-on-4 league that featured NHL players from the area. Landon Ferraro, who played 77 career NHL games with the Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins and Minnesota Wild, remembers being stunned to see the teen among the men.

“(Jon) brings him to our dressing room and pulled me out and I said, ‘Jon, what is he doing here? He’s going to get hurt,’” said Ferraro, the son of former NHL center Ray Ferraro and a Sportsnet hockey analyst in Vancouver.

“So we get back in (the room), no one wants to play with him. He’s a little kid. So, I said, ‘ok, I’ll take him.’ After that first shift, everyone was wanting to play with him. He was that good right away.”

Ferraro saw the fire in Bedard immediately.

“He got a 2-on-1, and I gave him a pass across, he took a quick shot and Martin Jones made an easy glove save on him. We get back to the bench and he’s mad. I said, ‘Connor, what’s up?’ He said, ‘When you shoot the puck it’s so much harder. That had no chance of going in.’ I said, ‘Connor, I’m double your age. Your shot is going to be just fine.’ But that’s what I’ve always loved: it doesn’t matter who he’s on the ice with, he wanted to be better.”

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When Bedard went home this past offseason, it was a much more relaxing time than in the summer of 2023, when he was entering the NHL Draft. But whether it’s crazy or calm, his workouts, including those at RK4 Development, don’t change.

Located on the south side of North Vancouver, RK4 was founded by Ryan Kerr, a former Western Hockey League defenseman who also played at York University in Toronto. Bedard was 7 or 8 when Kerr met him at North Shore Winter Club, where Kerr would help out with hockey camps during his summers off from university.

“You could kind of tell he was pretty special at that age,” said Kerr, who sported a lavender Hockey Fights Cancer Blackhawks hoodie at his gym on Thursday. A framed Bedard Blackhawks jersey hangs above the front door.

“We got to know each other a little bit that way and after university I started doing this as a job. He was working out elsewhere but after a couple of years, I think he was 14 when we started working together in the gym.”

Bedard usually has three-hour daily sessions at RK4 during the offseason: a 30-minute warmup, a two-hour workout and then a 30-minute cooldown, Kerr said. On summer Fridays Kerr takes clients outside for field training, including footwork, cutting and jumping and then conditioning.

Not surprisingly, Bedard sets a standard.

“After field day, Connor will run some extra down-and-backs or whatever for conditioning. Kids from the WHL will come up to me and say, ‘Hey, what did Connor do after session?’ stuff like that. So, he’s been a good role model for a lot of the other guys here.”

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Those around Bedard are excited for Blackhawks-Canucks on Saturday. Kerr will be at the game. So will, Calvano and his sons Brock and Cole, who have gotten to know Bedard well through their dad. Unfortunately, scheduling conflicts will keep Colebourn and Marr from attending the game, so they’ll just record it for posterity or lessons for their current players.

“I watch him for many things,” Colebourn said. “He’s a great example for shooting, different offensive clips. I’ve used so much of it because he has so much technique.”

Bedard is one of the NHL’s brightest young stars. There’ll be a good amount of fanfare when he returns on Saturday, but those who know him best said Bedard hasn’t changed with the added attention.

“To me, he’s still the same kid that he’s always been,” Calvano said. “As a fan watching him play and with two young kids, he plays hard, he plays the right way, he plays with skill. You just want him to have success.”

His coach, Luke Richardson, believes playing in the hometown spotlight will get Bedard, who has 13 points (three goals, 10 assists) in 17 games, will get him going.

“We’ve seen it in the past,” Richardson said. “He’s had great games in Edmonton. He’s had great games against the big teams, whether it be Colorado or Pittsburgh, where there’s an extra light shining on him.”

Perhaps no light will be brightest for the 19-year-old than the one he’s in Saturday, with a whole city finally watching it’s pride and joy up close.

“Last year really (stunk),” Colebourn said. “I know so many people who bought tickets for all of that and it was just an unfortunate situation. I just think it’s cool for him to be able to play in the NHL in front of his friends and family and get home and actually experience that.”