Written option: Must include 200 words.
Draft day is one that you'll always remember - but it's the people and places that got you here that are most important. Tell us about your journey to the SMJHL draft: your family, your minor hockey team, your hometown, and/or whatever had the biggest influence on you.

Yannick quickly acclimated to hockey growing up, everyone he knew played it and they all dreamed of playing in the AHL, the Austrian Hockey League. Growing up in Salzburg the young Austrian knew what he wanted to do, and he wanted to play for Salzburg’s hockey team in the AHL. Many people quickly saw his talent, and told him he could do better than the AHL, that he could eventually go across the ocean and play in some of the most high-profile leagues in North America. As far as Yannick was concerned hockey is hockey, it didn’t matter where he played hockey, he just wanted to play hockey as long as he could. His parents, obviously wanting the best for him, quickly got him all of the coaching, experience, and exposure they could in Austria, and eventually he was able to make the trek across the ocean. Had it not been for his parents pushing him to go across the ocean and enter the SHL, and their minor league system, the SMJHL, he’d still be a young Austrian playing in conditions that some would consider inhumane for a professional athlete. Yannick only knew the Austrian ice rinks and the play of the Austrians, so to him it was never an issue, but his parents knew conditions could be better and pushed him to the SHL.

(225 words)