Connor Bedard Gets Swarmed At Team Hotel by Fans at 3AM
In the early hours of a winter Saturday, the Regina Pats' team bus, including at the time a 17-year old Connor Bedard rolled up to a hotel in Medicine Hat, Alberta.
Amidst their fatigue, Bedard stood out as the Pats' most talented player and one of the most highly anticipated prospects for the NHL Draft in years. In the hotel lobby, as they soon discovered was customary in every lobby they visited, a group of eager fans awaited Bedard, hoping for autographs.
Even at 3 a.m., Bedard's commitment to his supporters shone through. Dante De Caria, the team's communications manager, recounted how Bedard would always oblige and sign autographs for those devoted fans.
These anecdotes epitomize the extent, intensity, and occasional absurdity of the Bedard Fever that swept across the Western Hockey League (one of Canada's top-tier junior circuits) during the past season. Countless stories illustrate this phenomenon.
While Chicago eagerly anticipates Bedard's arrival, poised to embrace him as the Blackhawks' savior once he is selected as the first overall pick in the upcoming draft on June 28, the city of Regina bid farewell to the young player who singlehandedly placed the capital of Saskatchewan, with its modest population of 229,000, among the hockey world's elite.
«Once he came back from the world juniors, things took another level,» De Caria said. «It just kept elevating and elevating as he became more popular. His face was all over TV, all over social media.»
«However you want to describe it � a bush fire, a wild fire, a monster � the following and the attention for him and for us from fans and from media exploded,» Paddock said.
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