A shy, reserved Carter Yakemchuk opens up about Jake Sanderson and being drafted by Ottawa

OTTAWA — Carter Yakemchuk does not relish the attention or spotlight.

When the Senators made the defenceman the seventh overall selection in the 2024 NHL draft on Friday night in Las Vegas, it was clear the 18-year-old was uncomfortable with the bright lights of television cameras.

And he was suddenly thrust into a line of questioning from reporters whose faces and voices he did not recognize.

What does it feel like to be drafted?

How would you describe yourself as a defenceman?

Who are you thinking of on a day like today?

It was a five-minute, whirlwind session with reporters in which Yakemchuk gave answers that were barely longer than the questions themselves.

“It was pretty crazy,” says Yakemchuk. “There are mics in your face and it’s not something I’m super used to.”

Yakemchuk agreed to an interview with The Athletic this week in an environment more suited to his liking. Instead of donning a shirt and tie — like he was sporting at the draft — Yakemchuk looks more relaxed wearing a black Senators T-shirt and shorts. He’s just completed his first round of fitness testing with the team and he’s now sitting inside the stands of an empty arena bowl inside the Canadian Tire. The backdrop is eerily silent — with the exception of a handful of other prospects playing a game of pickleball on the arena floor below.

“I’d say I’m more on the shy, quieter side,” says Yakemchuk. “It takes a little bit to open up and then I’m a pretty talkative kid.”

Yakemchuk exudes a similar vibe to Ridly Greig. The teenager is certainly shy, but he’s not the least bit aloof or awkward. He’s equal parts courteous and guarded. Yakemchuk carefully chooses his words, as if he has a limit of how many he can speak in a given day.

So even when you broach lighter topics with the young defenceman, he’s somewhat tight-lipped.

On his favourite movie he says, “I’m not a crazy sci-fi guy, but I enjoy Star Wars.”

His favourite thing in gym class? “When we played dodgeball as a class, that was the most fun thing.”

His favourite activity or hobby? “I would say fishing.”

And when asked about his favourite NFL team, Yakemchuk gives his most detailed answer.

“My oldest brother randomly cheered for the Miami Dolphins. Now our whole family cheers for them.”

And just like Greig, Yakemchuk maintains the dual persona of being a quiet, reserved person off the ice while being a loud, menacing force on it.

While his personality might closely mirror Greig, Yakemchuk has a much closer personal connection with a current member of the Ottawa Senators. And it just so happens to be somebody he might patrol the blue line with in the future.

One of the first text messages Carter Yakemchuk received on Friday came from Jake Sanderson.

“He sent me a note congratulating me and welcoming me to Ottawa. It was really cool to get that text,” says Yakemchuk.

It was not a surprising text message, given that the Yakemchuk and Sanderson families have known each other for years. One of Yakemchuk’s two older brothers, Keeling, played goalie on Sanderson’s teams growing up in the Calgary minor hockey system.

“I would always see Carter at the rinks all over Calgary. You could tell he just loved hockey,” Sanderson says via text. “They lived in the neighborhood across from us and there was a big outdoor rink there in the winters and our families would go skate on it.”

Sanderson adds that his mom and Yakemchuk’s mom are “great friends” who would often go on daily morning walks together because they lived so close to each other.

Yakemchuk admits that when he watched Sanderson play alongside his brother, he didn’t see an NHL talent leaping off the ice. That’s because he was simply tagging along to watch his brother — who is four years older than him — play hockey.

“I was just a kid in the stands. I wasn’t paying too much attention to what was going on in the ice,” laughs Yakemchuk.

Sanderson seems thrilled with the idea of the hockey team drafting a big, right-shot defenceman. And Yakemchuk knows there is a chance the two could be paired together at some point down the road, considering Sanderson is a left-shot defenceman.

“I haven’t thought about it too much, but that would be really cool to play with him one day,” says Yakemchuk. “Just having that mutual connection with him will really help me feel more comfortable around here.”

Sanderson has the reputation of being a silky smooth, elite defender. Yakemchuk, conversely, has a penchant for creating dazzling plays and generating scoring chances.

He told reporters in Las Vegas last week, “I think I pride my game in the offensive zone.”

Yakemchuk scored 30 goals for Calgary in the WHL last season, thanks largely to an NHL-calibre shot that he can unleash from the point. It was a skill that he honed for many years on the driveway of his childhood home in Calgary.

His father, Robin, moved his truck away from the driveway to create a little shooting area for his son. But like typical hockey families, there is an obligatory story about the collateral damage inflicted as a future NHL prospect was fine-tuning his shot.

“I put it right through the window one time. I went crossbar and it went straight up and hit the window in our house,” says Yakemchuk. “My dad fixed that window. But then he boarded it up with some wood so that it can’t be broken any more.”

Robin had a brief hockey career of his own, but the only season on record for him is the 1991-92 campaign with the Bonnyville Pontiacs of the Alberta Junior Hockey League. Robin led the team in scoring with 48 points, but he also racked up an astonishing 252 penalty minutes in 59 games. Yakemchuk has never seen game footage from his father in action, but there is evidence of his style of play elsewhere.

“My grandma has old newspaper clips and there are some funny articles about my dad,” Yakemchuk says with a smile. “The stories are always about big fights in the game and my dad’s name is always at the top of the story.”

But the lessons Yakemchuk learned from his father didn’t come from the hockey rink. Instead, they come from a pair of fast food chains owned by the family.

Like many kids in North America, Carter Yakemchuk has fond memories of wearing the paper crown handed out with a children’s meal at Burger King.

And even as a teenager, he is known to devour a Burger King meal.

“I’d have to say the Bacon King is my favourite burger,” says Yakemchuk.

But his connection to the restaurant chain lies much deeper than most, considering his parents own a pair of Burger King restaurants in Fort McMurray, Alberta. That’s where Yakemchuk lived the first six years of his life, before the family relocated to Calgary.

His parents still own and operate those restaurants, so a couple of times a month, Robin will make the seven-hour drive north to Fort McMurray to check on the operations of those two Burger Kings. Those are long, gruelling and lonely hours on the road, trying to support the family.

“My dad is an awesome role model for us. The hours he puts in to drive there to get his business done, it shows us hard work,” says Yakemchuk. “But he still makes time for us. He makes it to my games whenever he can.”

The Yakemchuks might live in Calgary, but part of their allegiance remains squarely tied to northern Alberta.

That is why the entire family has grown up as die-hard supporters of the Edmonton Oilers. Yakemchuk himself even attended Game 6 of the Edmonton-Vancouver series at Rogers Place in May, fully decked out in an Edmonton jersey. When he watches Oilers games, he pays close attention to Edmonton defenceman Evan Bouchard. When Yakemchuk was in attendance for that game in May, Bouchard exploded for a goal and two assists against Vancouver in the Game 6 victory that kept the Oilers season alive.

“Watching him, I try and take some of the things he does really well and apply it to my game,” explains Yakemchuk. “I like the way he plays in the offensive zone. He’s quick on the blue line and he’s able to get his shots through. That’s something I try and do in my game.”

When he was in elementary school, the mild-mannered Yakemchuk was such an Oilers fanatic that he was known to ratchet up the tension with his choice of clothing..

“There were definitely a couple of times I rolled into school wearing an Oilers jersey,” laughs Yakemchuk. “Lots of my friends are Calgary fans, so there was a rivalry between us.”

One of his prized possessions is a Jordan Eberle Oilers jersey — his favourite player to watch growing up. Ironically, Eberle had arguably his greatest moment as a hockey player inside the Canadian Tire Centre where Yakemchuk is conducting this interview. But he was only 3 years old when Eberle scored his magical game-tying goal against Russia in the 2009 world junior hockey championships.

“I’ve seen the clip of that,” says Yakemchuk.

He would like to create his own world junior memory inside the same building. Yakemchuk is asked to fast-forward to December and imagine the empty arena filled with fans clad in red and white cheering for Canada. His intention is to return to Calgary for one last season in the WHL, but he would like to make one stop in Ottawa to give fans a preview of what his NHL career will look like inside the Canadian Tire Centre.

“I’m making it a goal of mine this season to be on that team come December,” says Yakemchuk. “That’s a tournament I’ve watched growing up, so I’ve always wanted to be a part of it.”

(Photo: Candice Ward / Getty Images)