Flin Flon’s Joey Lies is northern Manitoba’s latest WHL Bantam Draft pick, being picked by the Swift Current Broncos during the April 22 selection.
Lies went in the seventh round with the 133rd overall pick, going to a club that finished a distant last place in the WHL standings this season.
The news hasn’t quite sunk in yet for the 14-year-old forward, who played this season for the Norman Wolves bantam AAA squad. Serving as the team’s captain, Lies ended the year with 42 points and 25 goals in 34 games. Lies ended the year with more goals than any of his teammates had points.
“I’m excited and proud. All the hard work kind of just paid off,” he said.
Lies said several WHL teams had shown interest in him, both throughout the bantam season and in the run-up to the draft.
“I did seven calls and like 16 or 17 questionnaires. I talked to some teams three times,” he said.
Lies said Swift Current was the first team to show interest in him as a prospect, first establishing contact with him last fall.
“I did a questionnaire with them in November - they were my first one,” he said.
“I was so excited and right after that, with that energy from talking to a WHL team because it never happened to me before, I went out and that weekend I played great against a top team.”
The team called Lies a day before the draft to check in with him.
Lies played in several showcase tournaments throughout the years and got to know other top Manitoba players in his age range. Two of those Manitoba players, centre Ryan Gould and defenceman Grayson Burzynski, were also selected by Swift Current earlier in the draft.
“A few of my friends went there, a couple guys from the Monarchs,” Lies said. Burzynski and Gould played on the Winnipeg Monarchs bantam AAA squad this year.
“We’ve been pretty close for a while now.”
Lies is the second member of his family to be selected in the bantam draft. Two years ago, his older brother Justin was picked by the Vancouver Giants in the third round. The brothers are the first two Flin Flon-area players to be selected in the WHL draft since Creighton's Allan Meyer was selected in 2007 by the Red Deer Rebels.
When asked if his brother would make fun of him for being picked four rounds later than him, Joey said he doubted it - but added if he was picked higher than Justin went, he would ensure his older brother wouldn’t forget it.
“He’s not the kind of guy to do that, but I feel like if I went earlier than he died, I would definitely do that to him,” Joey joked.
“I don’t know. I’m happy.”
Northern players are not often selected in the WHL draft. This season, with a roster full of mostly first-year and affiliated players, the Wolves finished with a 3-32 record, finishing second last in Manitoba’s bantam AAA league.
The season could have seen a better ending, but Lies said his time captaining the squad taught him about leadership and dealing with adversity.
“This year, it was hard. There were some games that were blowouts and some teams that were just overpowered that we couldn’t do much against,” he said.
“I thought my leadership, as a hockey player and a person, got a lot better. There were a lot of players making the big step up from peewee AA to bantam AAA and were having a rough time. I feel like my leadership had to step up and I think I did that.”
