NEW YORK — Graham MacKinnon still has the hockey card to prove the story is true.

When his son, Nathan, was 7 or 8 years old, he got a personalized hockey card made for Nathan. The front showed him in hockey gear posing for the camera, while the back had blank space to fill in personal information. What did young Nathan write?

“He said ‘I want to play for the Halifax Mooseheads, then I want to get drafted by Colorado and play with Joe Sakic,’ ” Graham said.

While he never got the opportunity to play with Sakic, Nathan Mac-Kinnon could be the No. 1 pick by Sakic and the Avalanche in the NHL draft Sunday in Newark, N.J.

What are the odds? It’s never been about luck for the 17-year-old from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia.

“It almost scared me. At age 2, he took right away to skating,” said MacKinnon’s father, who played junior C hockey as a goaltender. “I had trouble keeping up with him, no joke. We never pushed hockey on him at all. He just took to it right away, fell in love with it and hasn’t stopped. When he was 9 or 10, I’d sometimes say to him, ‘You know, not everyone makes it in hockey,’ and he’d just get mad. He’d say, ‘I’m playing hockey, I’m playing hockey. I don’t have a Plan B, I just have a Plan A.’ He’d say, ‘Plan B is just a distraction from Plan A,’ and he was so serious about it.”

MacKinnon and his parents — Graham and Kathy — traveled to weekend tournaments when he was a kid. While others might be up late on Saturday nights in whatever town they were in, young Nathan always was in bed early.

“A lot of his best games in those tournaments were on Sundays because the other kids would be tired from staying up late and he’d be well rested,” Graham said.

After a dominant Memorial Cup tournament in which he posted 13 points (seven goals) in four games for the champion Mooseheads, MacKinnon jumped to the top of many scouts’ lists as the best player available in this year’s draft. Sakic, now the Avalanche’s executive director of hockey operations, has said the team is leaning toward making MacKinnon the first pick overall.

If that happens, MacKinnon’s hockey card wishes will come true. But until they do, the blond center isn’t going to jinx anything by assuming Sakic and new Avs coach Patrick Roy have a similar dream.

“It’s been pretty cool to hear that they might want me, especially from two Hall of Famers like Joe and Patrick. It would definitely be a great opportunity to go there, but I don’t want to get my hopes up too much. A lot can change,” MacKinnon said.

MacKinnon, like most top draft prospects, has spent the weekend attending NHL and media functions. It’s natural to assume there is a chilling rivalry between him and highly rated defenseman Seth Jones, whose team he beat in the Memorial Cup title game. The opposite is true. They sat together for much of a media luncheon Friday next to the Hudson River, laughing and joking.

“He’s a great guy,” Jones said of MacKinnon. “He’s turned into a good buddy of mine. I’ll be happy for him if he goes No. 1, and I think he’d feel the same for me. Of course, I wish he hadn’t scored so many goals on us in the Memorial Cup, but that’s just how good he is.”

MacKinnon is quick to return any and all compliments.

“Seth is going to be a great player. He already is one. And he’s just an awesome guy,” MacKinnon said.

MacKinnon hasn’t been all about hockey, according to his 19-year-old sister, Sarah.

“We had some fierce Scrabble games growing up,” she said. “He wanted to win at that as much as anything else ever. Whatever it is, Nate just wants to win and be the best.”

Her brother even has good taste in music, she said.

“Anything from Elton John to country, to R&B and rap, I’m always stealing his iTunes,” Sarah said.

If he is introduced to the Denver media at the Pepsi Center on Monday — as the Avs plan to do with their top pick — it won’t be the first time MacKinnon walks through the arena doors. Last year, he traveled to Vail with his father to get his knee examined at the Steadman Hawkins Clinic and had a minor procedure done. They noticed the Avalanche was in Denver for a game against the St. Louis Blues during the visit, and attended the game as paying customers.

Soon, the Avs may be paying MacKinnon a lot of money to come to the arena.

“It’s surreal to think about,” Graham said.

Adrian Dater: adater@denverpost.com, twitter.com/adater