back to say Happy Easter it's time for after hours Connor Zer has arrived and Ryan Lesley is joining Scott so nice to see Ryan and Scott always nice to see you over to you well thank you very much Ron yes Ryan leslee and I pleased to have the Flames rookie sensation Connor Zer with us tonight I don't think sensation is to stated because look not a lot of people even had you penciled into play for the Flames this season and here you are a main stay now of their offense so you got to like the way
the show is starting right yeah for sure hey hey keep it going keep it going it's fine with me we're on a roll but uh the big news is you sto the losing skid that's from a team perspective huge I know and the power play was going so that's good but I wonder if we kind of take a look at your night and I think the conversation that a lot of people certainly on our side of things is just the fact that the way you're getting goals the Poise um not afraid to try and take guys on oneon-one you know in
some of those hard areas 15 fet and in you seem to be getting all your goals and it was just a night tonight where we saw just a lot of that speed a lot of that uh attempts to just try and be a game difference game breaker so how did you see you even yeah no I felt felt good tonight I think feeling the puck and and trying to get a little speed going through the middle and uh obviously like a few back I think that one trying and get to the to the inside a little more but just just little things
I think just trying to make plays holding to the puck open lanes up and and little things like that I think that's my game and and and trying to open space for guys around me I think that's what I do best so Conor after hours is not the first time you've been on the hot seat in your rookie season not that long ago you were grilled by two of the best in the business your Junior reporter today what's your favorite bio steel flavor what is your favorite stick favorite stick uh what's your favorite
[Laughter] food what's your favorite sugar cereal sugar cereal what was your favorite vacation uh what was is your favorite hockey player growing up my favorite hockey player growing up what is your favorite video game favorite video game those are all of her questions that's great than for me guys wow it's pretty clear you handled Oliver and Jasper with the pal so you shouldn't have any trouble with us the rest of the way but uh let's get right to your first career goal Ryan yeah take us back t
o Dallas I mean they say you never forget your first and I'm sure this one will always stay with you and and the idea too that uh I was I think it was your mom who was reminiscing about you and your cousin if I'm getting this one right about uh plan a plan B there was no plan B it was always to make the NHL and you said Mom there is no plan B because that's taken Focus away from getting to the NHL but maybe take us through that first goal and what stands out for you was uh it was certainly a spe
cial one let's have a look at it there it is yeah yeah for sure I think just um looking back at it you know you don't really uh remember a whole lot I kind of remember blacking out and just being so so excited so much emotion but I think just like overall the whole day of it I think uh a couple days before getting that call from from Bad Pascal saying I was going to be called up and I was going to get an opportunity to to show myself and prove myself and I think to be able to come into that firs
t game and obviously that's kind of a big monkey off the back kind of a deep breath and allows you to play your game you know you have a lot of adrenaline in that first game and and for me to be able to come out and and do that was was pretty special in front of everyone and I think it's kind of funny you you mentioned the the plan a plan B thing it kind of makes you think back to when you're in school and you're in grade five and and the teacher hands out a sheet and says what he want to do whe
n you're older and you kind of feel weird putting hockey player on it but that's something you always did and and and hope they accepted that and she would have said as most teachers do that's great but get a more Pi a real job yeah exactly and your cousin also made it right he's with Minnesota uh yeah that's one of my best friends actually it's not not my cousin all good but uh yeah he's in he's in Minnesota we we grew up together the whole time Adam Beckman and um every summer we train togethe
r we skate together and and kind of do do a lot of that stuff together so uh it's awesome that we've played together played against each other our whole lives and and here we are playing the NHL uh Ernie Nan asks what was your welcome to the NHL moment or did we just see it yeah I I got to say that I think uh sometimes maybe you get you get hit pretty hard and you're like okay everyone's a little bit bigger A Little Bit Stronger but I think just that that goal I think with my family there and an
d knowing how excited they were for me to to be able to play my first NHL game and and score that goal was uh probably the walk as Ryan just referenced you know from your very first game you've had nothing but confidence in uh in hanging on to the puck later in that game against Dallas as four three stars and you had a chance to tie the game on This brilliant dangle uh this is not a move that a lot of rookies would have the confidence to make in their very first NHL game from where did the confi
dence come to try that 48 minutes into your NHL career yeah for sure I think that's something I feel like I've always had is just that ability to try and make plays like that and and and to me it's it kind of just gets more frust when you do that and you're not able to finish it but um like you said I think confidence is is huge and and when you can instill that in yourself and I think just having like my mom and dad and everyone kind of always instilling that in me and if you do the right thing
s and work hard you're going to have confidence in your game so um I think it's an easy thing to to have but it's also easy thing to lose so you got to you got to be patient with it and and kind of be smart about it okay let's skip ahead to the family home in Saskatoon which takes us right to the basement of the Zer home Ry well I think there was a great story that we learned of uh in Arizona on the dad's trip and it was all about like a lot of kids you're taking shots you're creating holes I'll
let you uh take us through the rest of it because I think it's a great one yeah there's there's a lot um that that the this one in general it was um it's not too long ago yeah very innocent I was probably 17 Maybe and Just that's our Little Gym in there that's one of the walls in our gym and and I was playing with a medicine ball and and I accidentally for whatever reason threw it against the wall right into the drywall didn't even think about their like I was just maybe I'll throw it into a st
ud or something it's not like it's a concrete wall or anything I just threw it right into the drywall right through it and I was kind of like oh crap what am I going to do and you know growing up me and my brother me and my buddies we put so and and that basement was read down we' put so many holes in the wall just hitting each other through the wall or putting Pock through the wall and whatnot so I think when that one happened I was like oh I maybe I can get away with this and so I went upstair
s God on the computer I was typing out pictures of myself on Google Images and and a couple quotes and I grabbed I printed them out hurried downstairs grabbed some hockey tap taped them all up in a pattern and I'll tell you for 2 three years my my mom and dad must have just thought I was getting inspired and just in the gy I just everyone everyone went down there he like oh he's just getting inspired you know I had a Derek Jeter quote and I think I had a Muhammad Ali or quote or something like t
hat andant um and eventually one day I guess the tape stopped sticking and it fell in my dad this three years later so uh he kind of just laughed about it which made things awesome right so I'd say the scam worked if years almost a police officer you wonder where the discipline is coming next here's a question from Parker price please ask Z why he chose the number 47 and I I think we know the answer to that you've said I it's on the record that that happened to be the one they gave you when you
got here so I want to go ahead to a text that we got from Kevin be bexa earlier tonight you may have heard of him uh he says tell him to get some balls and ask for a new number next year um I was 25 for a season then I asked for number three you ask him for a new number wow big one um we'll see you know I'm I'm I'm with 47 right now it's it's not crazy like I don't I don't really care too much it was just something I given but I think maybe I'll put some thought into it after the season and see
if I want to switch anything up here's a video question for you from someone you may know Hear Too here question for you do you still eat sweet and sour pork day before games reminds me of a time when you were 16 years old here in CBS and you were shooting pucks and stretching and doing all that extra stuff and forgot how you're going to get home and the only person left was me to drive you and I said no problem I'll drive you home but you got to come on a date with me and my kids for lunch we w
ent to a Chinese place you refused to order anything and then you ate all Haley Tha and Lany sweet and sour pork and then you went on to have a great night the next night got a few points so do you still do it take care buddy really proud of you keep being you that's uh Colin Robertson retiring this year as cam loops Blazers trainers uh 29 years in the Western League the last 18 with Cam Loops and you formed a very tight bond with uh Toledo as he's called and his family so what about it uh steal
ing his kids trying to yeah I don't I don't know if I mean that the day before the game anymore but um I think I have so many special me memories with Toledo and and everything he did for the organization in cam loops and um for me personally just getting through tough times and and when honestly you see him more when things are going bad he puts a smile on your face he does something funny he does something that you might think stupid but it's going to put the biggest smile on your face and I t
hink that's why he was so integral with me being Junior you know you're away from your family and you have someone like that who's being that figure who is always pushing you along and Mak to you into the person you are and I I can't really thank him much for for how much he did and I'm so happy for him and everything he's done you were 15 when you went to your first cam loops training camp and I guess we could assume that you wouldn't have got through that and you wouldn't have been the special
player that you became in cam loops were it not for uh uh Chris or Toledo as he's known um he took the name Zary and uh convinced it to Zar which is essentially the definition of a Russian King and every once in a while he would yell when you run the ice all hail the king and he did that right to keep your ego in check right yeah exactly yeah he wasn't trying to pump me up too much no he uh even when he texts me sometimes he says uh he says something and then he ends the text kings are so it's
it's always funny to see that from him and and he's a really special person and and uh he's done so much for me let's get to your draft Yeah 24th overall in 2020 and uh I'm sure like a lot of kids you're nervous you're waiting and you're wondering and for you you had to wait uh a little bit maybe longer than you thought but first when your name was called it was a very spe it was different right it was the co time and uh so things were going to be announced so a very special person to pick or ra
ther make the pick I have the privilege tonight to welcome this young man to the Calgary Flames to carry on our traditions and Legacy I'll ask Flames director of amateur scating Todd button to bring the Jersey forward thank you Todd and with this the 24th selection in the 2020 NHL entry draft the Calgary Flames select Center Connor Zari from the cam loops Blazers and there you go the celebration at the Zary home because as we say the draft was virtual it worked better for the zary's than it did
for the holloways that year I think when Dylan Holloway was drafted 14th overall by the Oilers the feed froze and someone had to phone him later to tell him that he'd been drafted but that was quite the celebration Ryan and what were you thinking like I think that's the one question a lot of people want to know when when you're waiting and you're wondering you feel for some of those kids what what was going through your mind as you had to wait a little longer than expected yeah I think honestly
it being at home wasn't a bad thing I think I had some friends and family there even though it was Co it was it was pretty special to be able to maybe share with people maybe who couldn't have been at the draft like my grandma been able to travel and stuff like that so I think being being able to share it with everyone was was pretty cool but obviously waiting there and sitting there for for a couple hours got got pretty nerve-racking and anxious you know there's always a few teams in the back o
f your mind that you think might pick you and you know a couple of those left and then Calgary was at 19 and then they traded back and got another pick and I was okay but they're still there but we'll see and then we kind of had idea when it was coming up that that this was going to be it and obviously to have Lanny McDonald announce that to pretty much me and my family it's something I'll remember forever sorry to say we're out of time so uh look that pick has paid off for the Calgary Flames an
d Connor want to thank you for joining us tonight so there is Conor Zer making his Mark in his rookie season with the Calgary Flames and giving the Flames hope when come back Jonathan hubero will sit in as we continue with after hours from Scotia Bank saddled [Music] door
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