Pictured: the Saskatoon Minor Hockey Association

I am so happy, you guys. I have, no fooling, been looking forward to this day for a full year. It is the morning after the WHL Bantam Draft, and just like last year, the draft class is replete with a bunch of 14- and 15-year-olds with names like Vine stars.




As always, here’s Blueshirt Banter’s Adam Herman with the top-level rundown:


Jakin! Neithan! TIMBER.

The WHL draws from kids in western states and provinces, so this is a functional snapshot of 2001 birth names from very specific parts of the U.S. and Canada: Mormon Country and the Prairies, both solidly the weirdest-namin’-ass regions of this great continent of ours. You laugh now, but who’ll be laughing when Ryden becomes your boss someday?

There are so many more, though. (How Adam forgot to include Mkyllan, I will never know.) Yahoo Sports’ Sunaya Sapurji was noting the high points of each round. I cede the floor to her:






Congratulations to the parents, really.