Coaldale’s Ty Young reflects on being drafted by Vancouver

By Lethbridge Herald on July 15, 2022.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

Coaldale’s goaltender Ty Young has been on cloud nine since being drafted 144th overall by the Vancouver Canucks in last week’s NHL Entry Draft from the WHL’s Prince George Cougars.

Young was not present at the draft in Montreal and found out the Canucks drafted him while out on a local golf course.

“We kind of just had the draft going on our phones and just kind of listening,” said Young.

“But just golfing and kind of taking the stress off a little bit, trying to get our minds off of it  because a little bit stressed out there. But when my name got called, it was just  a surreal feeling.”

Young was ranked sixth among North American goalies .

“At kind of the start of the year, I wasn’t too sure if it was going to happen because there was a difficult goalie situation in P.G,” he said.

 “There was a 20-year-old that was still there and also another goalie in front of me. So, they kind of wanted me to be a third string up  there, but I kind of thought it would be better for me to go down to Calgary (AJHL Canucks) and at this time I wasn’ kind of not on the rankings yet  and I went down to Calgary, had a pretty a good season with the Canucks there, I only played like 17 games there — had a pretty good go with them. And then Prince George called me back like right  before the Christmas break with one of the other goalies getting hurt and then I got to play a few games there and (Taylor) Gauthier got traded right after and then I knew that’s when the rankings came out.”

Young grew up a Canucks fan and watching the likes of Roberto Loungo and the Sedin twins and still has team jerseys hanging up in his room.

“Yeah, it was  crazy because I couldn’t have gone to a better team,” he said.

“Like if you play in Canada too, it’s a little bit different than the States, hockey is like the biggest thing here. So, yeah, it’s an awesome opportunity to have. I’m excited.”

Young’s fellow teammate and goalie, Tyler Brennan, went 102nd overall to the New Jersey Devils.

“Yeah we were both really happy for each other,” he said.

“ We weren’t too sure what was going to happen coming in the year with Gauthier and stuff. But once we both joined as a tandem, we kind of connected really well together.”