Connor Redmond Selected #11 Overall By Red Deer
RED DEER, AB - The WHL Red Deer Rebels selected Connor Redmond with their first pick, 11th overall, in the 2007 Western Hockey League Bantam Draft. Redmond was a forward with the Western Canadian Champion Burnaby Winter Club (Bantam AAA) this past season.Connor Redmond is 15 years old and is considered to be one of the hottest prospects in Western Canada. He is the son of former University of Denver Alum Craig Redmond. Craig finished high school early and enrolled at DU when he was 16 years old.
Craig only played one season at the University of Denver in 1982-83 but set a single season scoring record for a defenseman with 54 points and was named WCHA Freshman of the Year. He remains the only DU player ever selected in the first round of the NHL draft.
Connor is supposedly trying to decide between playing college hockey or playing in the WHL. He can't do both as the WHL is classified as a "professional league" by the NCAA. DU and other NCAA schools can only hope that he goes the BCHL route and remains college eligible. That being said, its hard to imagine that Red Deer would waste a first round draft choice on a player that wasn't at least interested in playing in the WHL.
.
DU Alum Dallas Gaume has been an assistant coach at Red Deer since 1999.
2 comments:
My gut feeling is that he goes the WHL route. I am sure the Sutters, who own and coach Red Deer, are pretty confident that they can sign him otherwise they wouldn't have drafted him so high.
I just might be wrong, but I believe Gabe Gauthier was a first round WHL pick. He was regarded as one of the best North American prospects at 13-15 years old. I think he may have even been a top 3 pick in the first round, but ended up playing in the BCHL from the age of 15.
Post a Comment