Davis: Regina Pats happily keep hometown hero Maddox Schultz
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There really were no other options for the Regina Pats.
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Maddox Schultz was playing right under their noses, a Hockey Regina product who just turned 15, wearing their crest, attracting huge crowds and drawing raves for his skating and two-way hockey sense while scoring clutch goals that gave the Regina Pat Canadians a national under-18 hockey championship. Pats head coach Brad Herauf and assistant general manager Dale Derkatch have sons who played with and against Schultz, so they know he's a mature and conscientious young man with a supportive family who excels at school and is a hard-working, popular teammate.
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Millar paused and smiled, because after a soul-sucking WHL season it was a good bounce-back day for a legendary franchise that may have just added a potential hometown star to a Pats pantheon that dates back through Jordan Eberle, Mike Sillinger, Doug Wickenheiser and Fran Huck.
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Eberle, a 15-year NHL veteran and the most recent of the hometown stars, was among current NHLers with Pats or Regina connections who sent draft-day congratulations. And it felt like a party inside the team's war-room as it purged 2024-25 from their system. Schultz's parents (Vicki and David) and sister (Sydney) were among the guests at the team's celebration. They, too, were hoping this would be Maddox's career trajectory as he works toward becoming an NHL player.
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'He's had such great support; nobody gets there by themselves,' said David. 'Watching him realize some of his goals in big-stage games has been really fun.
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'He's still gonna have to clean his room, put his dishes away and it's not gonna be a billet parent. It's gonna be his mom and dad. We feel really fortunate that's his reality, our reality. That's big for our family.'
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Born in Medicine Hat before moving with his family to Regina a decade ago, Schultz was a mini-stick-playing, hockey junkie who idolized Sam Steel and Connor Bedard during their Pats careers. Now he's poised to step into that spotlight, although he will be limited to 34 WHL games next season as a 15-year-old under guidelines from the Western Canadian Development Model.
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'Some people kinda thought I was being coy when we won the lottery,' said Millar. 'And I think I said to a number of you in interviews that we weren't going to announce anything publicly until we were able to sit down with Maddox and his family. We were able to do that this past Monday. We had a great meeting, a great afternoon.
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'We were able to put Connor Bedard on video to make it official, to tell Maddox he was going Number One. He got some great congratulatory messages from Jordan Eberle, Cole Sillinger and Sam Steel. So it was really official when we met with Maddox and his family Monday afternoon.'
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