The first year of a player's draft eligibility is a difficult landscape to navigate, but that's been especially true for Swift Current Broncos defender Owen Pickering. As if the figurative growing pains of carving one's path weren't enough, he's had to overcome literal growing pains, too.

“Last year, I went into the [WHL] bubble kind of not expecting anything. I missed the last couple of months of the previous year when I was at the U18. Just kind of growth spurt stuff -- knee issues, back [issues]. I kind of expected to be scratched most of the time. It was kind of crazy to even by in the Western Hockey League. I didn’t expect to be there as a 16-year-old.” 

Pickering, a 6-foot-4, 174-pound left-shot defender for the Broncos was the team’s ninth and final selection in the 2019 WHL Bantam dr