from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

The 1977 footage of a 16-year-old Wayne Gretzky at the Montreal Forum World Juniors is Zapruder-like, as he skates around those faceless “Czechoslovakians” like a Baryshnikov among bar stools. That grainy video was captured so long ago, his opponents that night have changed the name of their national team not once but twice in the years since.

The phenoms have followed hence, through the same World Junior turnstile to NHL stardom. Mario Lemieux, to Sidney Crosby, to Connor McDavid, and perhaps now to young Connor Bedard, the only 16-year-old to score a hat trick at the World Junior tournament since Gretzky himself.

Bedard, of the Western Hockey League’s Regina Pats, feasted Wednesday on an overmatched Austrian team that had no answer for the five-foot-nine dynamo, scoring four times. Afterwards he described his performance the way each of the aforementioned would have, as having been lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

“Most of those (goals), I’m kind of just in front of the net, getting a stick on something. It was pretty fortunate,” Bedard said after the game. “Everyone makes the game easier, when you’re playing here with these guys.”

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