How Shane Wright's father kept him grounded with one simple phrase on draft day after being passed over 3 times
For Shane Wright, draft day must have been tough. the 18-year-old had been scouted since he was 13 years old and had long been considered an absolute lock to go #1 in his draft year. Even as his draft year began, Wright was still a lock to go first overall, but unfortunately for him, a very strong international showing for 6'4 Juraj Slafkovsky combined with a series of rough interviews for Wright pushed him out of that top spot.
What happened next, nobody saw coming. Wright began a bit of a free-fall, slipping from #1 completely outside of the top 3. With Slafkovsky, Simon Nemec and Logan Cooley piled together to take the traditional "1, 2, 3" photograph, you could hear Slafkovsky asking Cooley and Nemec whether Wright would be going 4th, because at that point, nobody really knew - including Wright himself.
The Kingston Frontenacs captain waited patiently, likely feeling completely deflated. Thankfully, he had his father to lean on, and dear ol' dad had some very wise words for Shane to help keep him centered and focused. Those words were:
"It's not when - I know it's easy to say - it's not when you go. It's what you do."
Some fantastic advice from father to son. Really, at the end of the day, he's 100% correct. Like, sure the allure of being a 1st overall pick is there. The honour of going before anyone else in the draft - but again, Mr. Wright re-iterated the message to his son as both his son and as a premium talent, "it's never been about when - it's where, and what you do." It's also a sentiment that he shared with Shane once again when his name was finally called by the Kraken.
It's great advice, and it seemed to really resonate with Shane. He'll now have that extra motivation to prove the 3 teams who passed on him wrong. He'll have a great opportunity to do that as a marquee player in Seattle.
