When Whitehorse’s Dylan Cozens was picked seventh overall at the 2019 National Hockey League draft by the Buffalo Sabres, it changed how the hockey world saw the Yukon.
Never before had a player from the territory been drafted in the first round, let alone the top 10.
More history will likely be made on Friday when another Yukoner — Gavin McKenna of Whitehorse — is projected to be the first overall selection at this year’s draft. McKenna is considered by many to be the best 18-year-old hockey player in the world.
“I think all signs point to Gavin,” said TSN hockey analyst Craig Button.
Cozens agrees.
I think he’s going first for sure– Dylan Cozens, Ottawa Senators
“It’s so awesome to see another kid from Whitehorse, especially him, and how well he’s done to get that attention and be the favourite to go first overall,” said Cozens. “I mean yeah, I think he’s going first for sure.”
Should that happen, it would be just the second time an Indigenous hockey player from Canada was drafted first overall. McKenna is a citizen of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation in the Yukon.
In 1977, Dale McCourt of the Frog Lake First Nation in Alberta was selected first overall, by the Detroit Red Wings.
“There was no fanfare,” recalled McCourt. “There was no correlation of being First Nations, the job was hockey. And at that time there was no reconciliaton the way it is now.”
Hockey fans in the Yukon are excited to see what happens Friday night, including Karee Vallevand. For 19 years, she’s run the annual Yukon Native Hockey tournament in Whitehorse.
“I think it’s a historical day for Yukon First Nations,” said Vallevand. “For an Indigenous hockey player from the Yukon to make it to the show.”
Michael Tuton knew McKenna was destined for big things from a young age. Tuton coached the Yukon hockey star when McKenna was just a kid.
“You knew he was a special player instantly,” said Tuton. “It wasn’t fair for him to play with kids his age.”
So McKenna played with older kids.
“We’d be at tournaments and linesmen would come up to me and ask who that number 9 kid was,” Tuton recalled. “I would tell them, ‘wait ’til he’s actually old enough to play in this tournament.’”
Tuton was also behind the bench coaching McKenna and Team Yukon at the 2023 Canada Winter Games. That’s where McKenna first gained national attention when he set a scoring record.
Tuton recalled one of the first practices ahead of those games, when he asked a player to look up the record at that time.
“I looked over at Gavin and said, ‘you got that?’ And before I could even finish the question he’s like, ‘yup.’” Tuton said.
McKenna would finish that tournament with 29 points in six games, beating the record held by Sidney Crosby.
‘Hard to fathom,’ say Leafs fans in Yukon
The idea of McKenna going first overall has Toronto Maple Leaf fans in the Yukon especially excited. Toronto defied the odds and won the draft lottery last month.
Leafs fan Mark Pike of Whitehorse has faint memories of watching Toronto win the Stanley Cup in 1967.
“I don’t remember much,” said Pike. “Just that it was black and white.”
The possibility of a hometown star playing for the Leafs is incredible to Pike.
“It’s hard to fathom or believe that that’s even possible,” Pike said.
His son Jeff Pike, also a Toronto fan, agrees. Jeff also played for the Yukon at the Canada Winter Games in 2003, when the team scored two goals all tournament.
Jeff says that growing up in the Yukon, he never imagined it was possible to get to where McKenna is.
“You know, you hear about kids from small towns in Saskatchewan, but kids from small northern towns, they didn’t make it — so it would just be absolutely incredible,” Jeff said.
Jeff said when Cozens was drafted in 2019, it was like “proving that this can be done.” McKenna’s even surpassed that, he said.
“There’s a big difference in going seventh overall and going first overall — like, it’s monumental,” Jeff said.
Should McKenna go to Toronto it would add some extra spice and Yukon flavour to a provincial rivalry. That’s because Cozens now plays for the Ottawa Senators.
“It’d be pretty cool,” said Cozens. “You know, it would be the ‘battle of Ontario’ and then the ‘battle of the Yukon’ — Yukoners would have to make a choice.”
Of course, there are no guarantees McKenna will be drafted first. Scouts and NHL management have shocked prognosticators in the past.
Most recently in Montreal, when the Canadiens bypassed projected number one Shane Wright.
Tuton says while McKenna being number one would be nice and historic, it doesn’t really matter when he’s actually picked.
“He’s smashing all these barriers down, and he’s doing it as himself,” Tuton said. “Pretty proud of him.”
The draft, which happens in Buffalo, N.Y., begins Friday at 4:00 p.m. Yukon time. Watch parties are planned in Dawson City, Yukon, and at Whitehorse’s Takhini Arena, the rink where McKenna first played.
Then, for McKenna, the work begins, with training camp in September and the N.H.L. regular season beginning in October.
McKenna has said his next big goal is to make it in the starting line-up for the team that takes him.
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