As expected, the Regina Pats followed through Wednesday morning and made Connor Bedard the first overall pick in the 2020 W-H-L Bantam Draft.

The Pats had said they would select Bedard with the first choice after winning the Draft Lottery last month. Regina followed that up Tuesday by signing the Vancouver-area product to a Standard W-H-L Education Contract. That made Wednesday’s start of the selecting of 2005-born talent a formality. In addition, Regina will be able to use Bedard as a full-time player next season, even though he’s only 15-years-old, as he was granted Exceptional Player Status by Hockey Canada last month.

After that, Prince George took Dundurn product and Saskatoon Contacts’ forward Riley Heidt second overall while Moose Jaw picked Heidt’s Contacts’ team-mate and Dundurn native Brayden Yager third overall. Heidt confirmed that a picture of him on Twitter wearing a Prince George uniform and holding a pen with papers in front of him means he has already signed his Standard W-H-L Education Contract. Yager is hopeful of doing the same in the next few days.

After Tri-Cities chose defenceman Lukas Dragicevic fourth overall, the Saskatoon Blades used the fifth selection on defenceman Tanner Molendyk. A 5’10”, 156-pound Kamloops product, Molendyk was the captain of his Yale Hockey Academy Bantam prep team out of Abbotsford, B-C.

As for the Prince Albert Raiders, they picked defenceman Terrell Goldsmith 15th overall out of Fort St. James, B-C, via the Delta Hockey Academy in suburban Vancouver.

Another Saskatoon product was taken in the first round when defenceman Reid Anderson of the Saskatoon Generals Bantam AA’s had his name called by Medicine Hat.

In all, seven of the 22 first round selections were players from Saskatchewan. The pick-by-pick list of the 2020 W-H-L Bantam Draft can be found at www.whl.ca/draft.