NHL
Connor Bedard Reveals the Pregame Superstitions He Follows Before Taking the Ice
Joe Kozlowski began his career as a sports journalist in 2013 and joined Sports7 in 2019. He covers the NBA and soccer for Sports7, with specialties in legacy NBA players such as Michael Jordan and Premier League club Arsenal. Off the clock, he's a Kansas City Chiefs fan and a hockey goalie. Growing up loving Shaquille O'Neal and reading everything he could about the great big men throughout NBA history — likely because he was still tall enough, at least relative to his peers, to play center — he's continued to love learning about and exploring the historical and story-based sides of the basketball archives. As for Arsenal, Joe spent a year living in London and latched onto the local support of the club. He's barely missed a match since, loving Arsene Wenger, enduring the Banter Era, and following along through rebuilds. The Premier League interest developed into a passionate following of the Champions League, Europe's big five league, and international soccer as a whole when played at the highest level. Regardless of the sport, Joe is captivated by the stories of athletes beyond the box scores and how they push the envelope — both in terms of what we think a human is capable of accomplishing and how they find new competitive tactics to win.
All posts by Joe KozlowskiUpdated30 Jun 2023
On the whole, professional athletes are a superstitious bunch. And, given that large parts of their career can depend on luck, who can blame them? That's especially true in hockey, where randomness is inescapable. It's tough to draw up a play, and even if you do, it's completely possible that the puck will simply bounce over someone's stick and ruin everything. Connor Bedard may not have officially an NHL player just yet, but he clearly understands what he's up against.
Ahead of the 2023 draft, the former Regina Pats star spoke to NHL.com. While the conversation touched on a variety of topics, ranging from his signature shot to Connor McDavid, Bedard also revealed the things that he has to do before a game in order to avoid upsetting the fickle hand of fate.
Let's check it out.
Connor Bedard is a creature of habit on game day
Over the years, hockey has seen plenty of bizarre routines. Sidney Crosby, for all of his fame and fortune, still wears the same athletic supporter that he donned in high school. Glenn Hall was known for throwing up before taking the ice and, in a 2011 interview with The Providence, even admitted that he came to feel that he “wasn’t giving everything [he] had” if he wasn't sick to his stomach. Thankfully for his teammates, Connor Bedard keeps things a bit lower-key.
When speaking to Mike G. Morreale of NHL.com, the Regina Pats star dished on his pre-game superstitions. While he has plenty of boxes to check off before taking the ice, they're all pretty standard.
“Well, my whole day is exactly the same on game days,” the presumptive first overall pick explained. “The way I do everything is very similar. I think if you watch my warmup, or watch my warmup off the ice, it's always the same kind of patterns. I always put my stick in the same spot, same way, before taping it. I could definitely have a pretty good list [of superstitions].”
What else is on that list? Apparently, the center forgoes the standard practice of getting dressed in the same order every time. His check list, it seems, varies depending on why he's taking the ice.
“Most times, I'll put on left skate first, right skate second, but for practices I go right skate first, left skate second,” Bedard noted.
No matter what Bedard has been doing, there's no reason to change now
When you look at pre-game rituals from afar, it's easy to say that they don't matter. Even if you want to be charitable and say they help the athlete get into the right mindset, a professional would theoretically click into gear pretty quickly, even if things didn't go according to plan. Even with that cynicism, though, Connor Bedard is clearly doing something right.
During his time in the WHL — you could argue that's literally kids' stuff, and the forward hasn't done anything yet — the British Colombia native hasn't had any problem stuffing the box score. He recorded 100 points during the 2021-22 Major Junior season and managed to one-up himself during the 2022-23 campaign. The forward finished his final year in Regina with 143 points (71 goals and 72 assists) across 57 appearances. If you add in his exploits at World Juniors, where he posted 23 points en route to a gold medal, it's easy to see why Bedard captured the hockey world's collective imagination.
And even though there's some debate about what his professional future will hold, even the most conservative projections are still rather flattering. Writing for The Athletic, Scott Wheeler mused that Bedard could be more of a Patrick Kane than a Sidney Crosby, profiling as an electrifying scorer rather than a true do-it-all game-changer. If that's a worst-case scenario (barring truly unforeseeable factors like a career-ending injury), then the center is in a pretty good place.
If he remains on that trajectory, just about any superstition he wants to follow will be tolerated. If you're scoring goals, after all, you get plenty of latitude.
