GDT: 2024 NHL Draft (June 28 - June 29, Las Vegas Sphere)

[usiel]

USA (Eiserman, Connelly) vs. Finland (Helenius, Kiviharju, Hemming) coming up on NHLN.

Forgot to set the record so getting in with 5 minutes left in the first. No score yet. Go Teddy Stiga.

 

[usiel]

And my boy scores.

 

[Langway]

Hat trick for Stiga. Casual six point game (3+3) for Hagens. He's pretty, pretty, pretty legit.

 

[kicksavedave]

It's not like Connelly just made one or two mistakes. He has been asshole that has bounced around his entire young career because of it.

It's not just an apology or two that's needed from him. He needs to change who he is as an human being. He can redeem himself sure. Has he done that? I don't know.

Too big of a risk for me. He has changed his teams more often than his shoes. There is a good chance he'll be available again in the future even if you don't draft him.

The question is asked "has he done that" in terms of redeeming himself? Hard to answer definitively, but he's certainly trying and doing all the right things.

From various sources:

In an exclusive interview with The Rink Live, Connelly discussed an offensive photo he posted as a 16-year-old, an alleged racial remark in California, and the process he has outlined for himself in order to better himself and do his part to make hockey a more inclusive place.


“I think it’s important I talk about what happened because it was an awful mistake and I still feel terrible about it,” Connelly said.

That ‘it’ came in March of 2022 while Connelly and a teammate were in their local library. Connelly’s teammate created a swastika with children’s building blocks and Connelly took a photo, posting it to his Snapchat story and tagging him in the post.

“When I posted it, I didn’t appreciate how offensive and hurtful the post would be,” he said. “But after posting it and talking about the symbol, I removed the picture.

“I’m very sorry for my ignorant mistake and since then I’ve been doing a lot to try to make up for it.”

Since the photo got out, Connelly has worked at redemption through volunteer work and diversity training courses. He and his father even coached an under-14 team at the Amerigol LATAM Cup, an international tournament in Florida that seeks to break down barriers by featuring squads from "non-traditional" hockey locales such as Egypt, Brazil and the Caribbean.

Connelly coached the multicultural HPOC team, organized by the U.S.-based group Hockey Players of Color.

"It was so fun," Connelly said. "It was so cool to see all these different countries there playing hockey. I had such a blast being able to coach kids and give them my knowledge."

While it’d be easy to say he was just an ignorant 16-year-old kid, Connelly has owned up to it and used it as a way to better himself.

“I wanted to learn from it and educate myself,” he said. “I visited the LA Holocaust Museum and I also read the book, 'Night' (by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel). That gave me a much better understanding of why the post and the swastika symbol are so hurtful, and that antisemitism is still a big problem today.

“Knowing what I know now, I would never post something like that and I regret doing it.”
"I can tell you from every single facet of our organization — billet families, fan interaction, community service, players, staff, ownership — everything. The overwhelming sentiment of Trevor has been positive. Every single community outreach event that our organization was involved in, Trevor was there. He wasn't told that he had to be, but he made it a point to do it. He did every single thing we asked of him and more."

He’s also now involved with Hockey Players of Color, a group that’s geared towards making hockey more inclusive and a better place — something Connelly said he wants to do.

"Oftentimes you have people who don't understand other people's culture and they don't realize how certain things impact them or how having that extra insight and perspective on the world itself can benefit them," said Jazmine Miley, the founder of Hockey Players of Color.https://www.hpocmovement.com/mentors

Ever since Trevor came to us he's been committed to learning and helping, and I think he's really embraced that while working with the kids he has. He knows their lives might be different, but hockey can bring them together."

Connelly has committed to serving as a mentor for the group and he's already done several Zoom meetings with HPOC athletes.

He’ll head to Florida in two weeks with his father too, where he’ll help coach a U14 team at The Miracle LATAM Cup, which HPOC will be represented at.

Since then, the California native has taken various steps to educate himself and rebuild his reputation.

Connelly visited the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum, read numerous books about the Holocaust and continues to volunteer in nearby communities, as well as with initiatives geared towards making hockey more inclusive.

Everyone will have their own opinions about redemption, but I find it hard to think that a 16 year old kid who takes and posts an offensive picture cannot be forgiven and redeem himself. Its not like he was attending rally's and chanting offensive messages as part of a deep rooted belief system. He genuinely didn't seem to understand the impact, and while we can say he should have, I shudder to think about my own morality and world history knowledge when I was 16.

 

[Ridley Simon]

The older one gets, the more one sees from within the prism of youth vs wisdom. And when it should slide from one to the other.

16 isn’t the start of that age, from my view. However doesn’t mean this kid isn’t a total prick (in his head) who has serious anger/angst about something. And he takes it out on others.

Or he was raised rascist.

Or he’s a psychopath.

Lots of in between.

That said, I can easily see both arguments. I’m not sure I’d boycott anything if they picked him (man he’d be under a well deserved microscope), but I’d rather they didn’t.

Personally.

 

[pman25]

What’s the deal with Stiga? I’ve not heard or seen much of him prior to this week

 

[usiel]

What’s the deal with Stiga? I’ve not heard or seen much of him prior to this week

Honestly I didn't know much about him. He's projected to get in the 2nd round for this years draft. The hands and hockey sense just really jumped out as something special. Again a lot like Perreault from last years draft.

 

[usiel]

Only got to watch the 1st period yesterday so into the 2nd Stiga's 2nd goal 8 seconds into the period with a quick snapshot from a pass by Hagens.

Less than a minute later Eiserman comes in on a 2 on 0 and could have passed to his teammate for a slam dunk goal but elects to shoot it. Meh.

 

[Langway]

2+1 for Sennecke last night in an OT loss. Have to think he'll go before Eiserman and perhaps even Iginla the way he's going.

 

[bacchist]

The question is asked "has he done that" in terms of redeeming himself? Hard to answer definitively, but he's certainly trying and doing all the right things.

From various sources:

Everyone will have their own opinions about redemption, but I find it hard to think that a 16 year old kid who takes and posts an offensive picture cannot be forgiven and redeem himself. Its not like he was attending rally's and chanting offensive messages as part of a deep rooted belief system. He genuinely didn't seem to understand the impact, and while we can say he should have, I shudder to think about my own morality and world history knowledge when I was 16.

Yeah, this is basically the bare minimum you could do to rehab your image after you get caught posting Nazi iconography on social media, when it could make millions of dollars of difference in your future earnings.

 

[kicksavedave]

Yeah, this is basically the bare minimum you could do to rehab your image after you get caught posting Nazi iconography on social media, when it could make millions of dollars of difference in your future earnings.

If this is the bare minimum, what other things could/should he be doing at this point? Or are some mistakes simply unredeemable?

 

[pman25]

Sennecke is on fire. He might be top 12 or so. Either way, bodes well that we have all these risers. Maybe we will get a Zayne Parekh or Cole Eiserman at 17

 

[Calicaps]

Yeah, this is basically the bare minimum you could do to rehab your image after you get caught posting Nazi iconography on social media, when it could make millions of dollars of difference in your future earnings.

I don't agree. There's no way to know what's in another person's heart. But the kid is doing the things he can do that are public and impactful. Tweeting out a swastika as a 16 year old is stupid and shitty, but he also could have done a lot worse. At some point you just have to take him at his word and look at what he's done and hope it's sincere. Time will probably tell. Does he regress once he gets what he wants for himself? Does he demonstrate an ongoing commitment to treating others with respect? Those are the things that will matter long term. Would I want the Caps to take a chance on him? Probably not, but I'd also have to trust the pros who would actually meet and talk with him.

 

[usiel]

Hagens looks like he's 2025 along with McKenna. Wouldn't mind getting an extra 1st in 2025.

 

[AlexModvechkin8]

Connelly will likely be BPA at 17 but the Caps don’t seem like the type of organization to take on a character risk like him. John Wall was Ted’s boy and he pretty much directed Tommy Shepard to boot him to Houston because he was pissed about a video that showed Wall flashing gang signs at a party in New York. Can’t imagine Ted would sign off on drafting him.

 

[bacchist]

I feel like y'all are trying to minimize it by saying it was when he was 16, as if this was ancient history.

It's 2024, and he posted the swastika on social media in 2022.

 

[Calicaps]

I feel like y'all are trying to minimize it by saying it was when he was 16, as if this was ancient history.

It's 2024, and he posted the swastika on social media in 2022.

FWIW, I'm Jewish. I don't take it lightly at all. But I also was once 16. I was an idiot. I am betting that's not unusual.

 

[AlexModvechkin8]

FWIW, I'm Jewish. I don't take it lightly at all. But I also was once 16. I was an idiot. I am betting that's not unusual.

Also Jewish. Also was an idiot at 16. Very grateful there wasn’t social media around back then.

 

[Calicaps]

I feel like y'all are trying to minimize it by saying it was when he was 16, as if this was ancient history.

It's 2024, and he posted the swastika on social media in 2022.

FWIW, I'm Jewish. I don't take it lightly at all. But I also was once 16. I was an idiot. I am betting that's not unusual.

Also Jewish. Also was an idiot at 16. Very grateful there wasn’t social media around back then.

And I'll add that adolescence and early adulthood are periods of rapid learning and maturation. So two years might mean nothing for grown-ups, but it can change a LOT for a young person at that stage of life.

 

[RedRocking]

Also Jewish. Also was an idiot at 16. Very grateful there wasn’t social media around back then.

Seems like my fellow members of the tribe are more forgiving and gracious than I am.

To me being young and dumb is getting drunk, fighting, throwing bottles, lighting the occasional couch on fire, whatever, lol. And yes I am super grateful to have grown up without social media.

I just don’t grasp the idea of engaging in forms of offensive speech as dumb kids stuff. I don’t recall using racial slurs and the like as being young and having a good time. Like, that was never ok. One should know better at 16.

Do they just not teach kids anything about WWII/Holocaust in school these days? What makes a kid think a swastika is a cool thing to post on SM? Was his takeaway from History class that the Nazis were the good guys? Did he see the Charlottesville incident and decide he liked the neo-nazis?

A decade ago I might have been more forgiving, but even before recent world events, Anti-Semitism has been skyrocketing. So, I guess with a kid like this, I’d like to understand the “why.” Maybe all the remedial activities he’s engaged in will help educate other moron kids of his generation - so I guess that can be a positive.

 

[Kalopsia]

Just a reminder because the conversation here seems to focusing on the swastika thing - that's not the only part of this. That's the only part he'll admit to (because there's photographic evidence, can't really deny that one), but it's not the only reason people don't like this kid. The Athletic did a deep dive on Connelly back in February, and this is how they summarize it:

Many NHL evaluators were already aware that, in 2022, when he was 16, Connelly posted to Snapchat a picture of a teammate sitting on the floor of the children’s area of a library with building blocks assembled in the shape of a swastika. Connelly added the caption “creations.” He was removed from his team, the Long Island Gulls, after that incident. Connelly apologized for the posting of the swastika and said he didn’t understand how hurtful it would be to others. Some NHL people were also aware he had been accused of directing a racial slur at an opponent during a game in 2021, which he has denied. He was initially suspended after that allegation, though the suspension was not upheld, with the disciplinary committee for the California Amateur Hockey Association writing that the allegation could not be corroborated. Connelly told The Athletic he doesn’t use racial slurs. Some teams were also aware that Connelly had been involved with four amateur programs from 2020-22, an unusually vagabond career for a player with his talent; one of those stops, at Bishop Kearney, a high school in Rochester, N.Y., with a select hockey program, lasted less than two weeks.

They're underselling the racial slur incident, which honestly sounds worse to me than the swastika incident and was shamelessly covered up. Side note: f*** the California Amateur Hockey Association. How do you not only not include the victim, the victim's coach, or the victim's parents in the disciplinary hearing, but not even let them know it's happening?

Connelly instead joined Anaheim’s Jr. Ice Dogs, and in April 2021, when he was 15 and playing for that team versus the L.A. Jr. Kings, he was accused of directing a racial slur at an opponent. What happened remains in dispute. The player came off the ice “so visibly shaken and upset with tears streaming down his face after the incident that I had to sit him for the remainder of the first period so he could collect himself,” according to an email his coach, Brett Beebe, sent to Pacific District official Wayne Sawchuk, which was viewed by The Athletic.

Video footage of that game shows the player leaving the ice in the first period and flagging his coach’s attention. The two move behind the bench and speak for approximately one minute, with the coach consoling the player. The player then walks to a nearby vestibule and bends over with his hands on his knees, where he remains until the period ends.

Beebe asked in his email to Sawchuk that the incident be reported to members of the Pacific District tournament disciplinary committee. He later testified before that committee, which suspended Connelly.

The matter was then taken up by the disciplinary hearing committee of the California Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA). After a hearing before that group, the panel found that “the alleged incident as described by the Pacific District Tournament Disciplinary Committee may have occurred, however, there was no supporting documentation presented by the (Pacific District Tournament Disciplinary Committee) that corroborated the allegation against the player, and the player maintained that he at no time uttered any racial slurs against his opponent,” according to its written decision. In closing, the CAHA committee stated that Connelly had not violated the USA Hockey rule covering misconduct.

Connelly attended the hearing, conducted via videoconference, as did his parents and Osei-Tutu, his adviser. Beebe and the player who alleged Connelly used the slur were not in attendance, according to the committee’s written decision. Beebe said in an interview he was not made aware that the hearing was taking place, and no one from CAHA alerted him that the allegation was under further review. The player who made the initial allegation was not contacted about the hearing, either, nor were his parents or the player’s adviser.

Also, keep in mind as you read about all the nice stuff Connelly's done since the the swastika incident that this kid has had an agent (the aforementioned Osei-Tutu) advising him since 2020, and has both a PR team and an attorney that they sicced on the Athletic when they found out about this story.

After the Connelly family became aware The Athletic was working on this story, they engaged an attorney who previously was involved in a lawsuit against The Athletic. (That lawsuit has since been dropped.) That attorney sent an eight-page letter that, among other assertions over more than 3,500 words, attacked the journalistic integrity of one of the writers working on this story. The family also engaged a Los Angeles-based public relations person who includes “reputation management” among her areas of expertise in her company bio.

My picture of Connelly after reading the whole article is that he's the classic entitled rich kid who's never had to face any accountability for his actions because his parents' money could always bail him out, and it turned him into a gigantic asshole. It's impossible to know if he feels any actual remorse for what he's done because everything we hear and see from him is coming through the filter of the advisers and PR people his parents are paying for. Even if you're willing to buy his spiel that he's only ignorant and not a racist, he sounds like a locker room cancer. I don't want him anywhere near the Caps.

 

[Calicaps]

Seems like my fellow members of the tribe are more forgiving and gracious than I am.

To me being young and dumb is getting drunk, fighting, throwing bottles, lighting the occasional couch on fire, whatever, lol. And yes I am super grateful to have grown up without social media.

I just don’t grasp the idea of engaging in forms of offensive speech as dumb kids stuff. I don’t recall using racial slurs and the like as being young and having a good time. Like, that was never ok. One should know better at 16.

Do they just not teach kids anything about WWII/Holocaust in school these days? What makes a kid think a swastika is a cool thing to post on SM? Was his takeaway from History class that the Nazis were the good guys? Did he see the Charlottesville incident and decide he liked the neo-nazis?

A decade ago I might have been more forgiving, but even before recent world events, Anti-Semitism has been skyrocketing. So, I guess with a kid like this, I’d like to understand the “why.” Maybe all the remedial activities he’s engaged in will help educate other moron kids of his generation - so I guess that can be a positive.

Totally get it. Pretty terrifying out there right now. But it wasn't unusual to still hear gay slurs and see some outrageous misogyny when I was a teen. That stuff was all over our movies etc. Just because this event targeted my group doesn't mean we were wholly less clueless.

Just a reminder because the conversation here seems to focusing on the swastika thing - that's not the only part of this. That's the only part he'll admit to (because there's photographic evidence, can't really deny that one), but it's not the only reason people don't like this kid. The Athletic did a deep dive on Connelly back in February, and this is how they summarize it:



They're underselling the racial slur incident, which honestly sounds worse to me than the swastika incident and was shamelessly covered up. Side note: f*** the California Amateur Hockey Association. How do you not only not include the victim, the victim's coach, or the victim's parents in the disciplinary hearing, but not even let them know it's happening?



Also, keep in mind as you read about all the nice stuff Connelly's done since the the swastika incident that this kid has had an agent (the aforementioned Osei-Tutu) advising him since 2020, and has both a PR team and an attorney that they sicced on the Athletic when they found out about this story.



My picture of Connelly after reading the whole article is that he's the classic entitled rich kid who's never had to face any accountability for his actions because his parents' money could always bail him out, and it turned him into a gigantic asshole. It's impossible to know if he feels any actual remorse for what he's done because everything we hear and see from him is coming through the filter of the advisers and PR people his parents are paying for. Even if you're willing to buy his spiel that he's only ignorant and not a racist, he sounds like a locker room cancer. I don't want him anywhere near the Caps.

Well that's a whole other level... YIKES

 

[HeyMattyB]

Just a reminder because the conversation here seems to focusing on the swastika thing - that's not the only part of this. That's the only part he'll admit to (because there's photographic evidence, can't really deny that one), but it's not the only reason people don't like this kid. The Athletic did a deep dive on Connelly back in February, and this is how they summarize it:.

Thanks for doing the research and posting this.

 

[usiel]

He'll have to address this in team interviews at the combine. Probably will trickle out how he handles those.

16 year old teenage male and the hormones man its all kind crazy. We've all messed up in those years. Still surprised some here feel like he should be branded on the forehead eternally for his 'crimes'. It is great that in the current day there is less tolerance to the epithets (the nazi stuff aside that is just stupid). TBH if you translated the 16 year olds back when I was in '85 and the the stuff thrown about would probably be excommunicated from social media in todays time. Obviously glad today is what it is.

 

[pman25]

Yeah really I don’t get it with Connelly, would be a much more interesting conversation if this was like a Jack Hughes or Connor Bedard level talent, but this guy is like 10th maybe 15th on talent? Probably 20th to 30th on draft day? Who cares, there should (theoretically) be a equally talented player or two on the board when we pick. Now we just gotta pick the right one!

But for me, I don’t care to learn anything more about Connelly.