Josh Frazer woke up, took a shower, brushed his teeth and settled in with his OHA Edmonton buddies to watch Day 2 of the Western Hockey League prospects draft.
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Midway through the televised proceedings May 8, the 15-year-old forward from Lloydminster saw his name on the draft board as the Spokane Chiefs selected him in the sixth round, 135th overall.
“Oh, I was pretty excited, especially that Spokane chose me,” Frazer said a couple of hours later. “They have a pretty good program and a pretty nice rink. I heard people love playing there and it’s just a nice city, too.”
Frazer is an electrifying talent who scored more than a point per game this past season with OHA’s U15 prep team in Edmonton. With his relentless and determined style of play, he collected 17 goals and 38 points in 35 games in the Canadian Sport School Hockey League.
Frazer’s energy is through the roof, especially considering he measures in at about five-foot-nine and 140 pounds. His sister Abby, 17, is a competitive gymnast.
“Yeah, that’s a good way to put it — Josh is a speedy, tenacious winger that gets in hard on the forecheck, is real good around the net and plays a detailed 200-foot game,” said George Ross, the Chiefs’ director of player personnel.
“And that can be tougher to find for skilled players at this age. A lot of them want to just play an offensive game over time, but Josh brings a real strong, detailed defensive game, which is what we’re looking for.”
Frazer credits his father Vince for instilling in him that any job worth doing is a job worth doing well. Even if that meant a few stray pucks, or the odd broken window, when shooting in their backyard, which doubled as a rink during Frazer’s formative years.
“It definitely came a lot from my dad,” Frazer said of his high compete level on the ice. “He just pushes me hard to do a lot of things. Like, if I don’t want to do things or I’m not going to do something 100 per cent, then I shouldn’t do it at all. He’d just make sure I work hard all the time.”
The Chiefs, now immersed in the WHL championship series against the Medicine Hat Tigers, took time out from their playoff run to choose two Lloydminster-area forwards. Brody Sunderland, the Kitscoty kid who played U15 AAA with St. Albert this winter, was selected in the fourth round, 75th overall.
Frazer and Sunderland know each other well and have been teammates in previous years with prep programs like the Lloydminster Athletics and Wave Hockey Academy, along with travel teams for spring/summer hockey.
“It’s definitely good for me that we’re going to the same team,” Frazer said. “Brody is somebody that I know and that I’ve played with. We get along really well. It’s really good for both of us to have someone there that we know and can count on to not only be a good friend, but to be a good hockey player, too.”
It’s possible they might be teammates again as early as this coming season with the U18 AAA Lloydminster Lancers. Fraser plans to join the Lancers and Sunderland is considering playing with Lloyd as well.
Earlier last week, they were named as top-80 finalists for the Alberta U16 team, along with fellow Lloydminster forwards Tripp Fischer of Delta Hockey Academy and Kael Scott of OHA Edmonton. Fischer (52nd overall) and Scott (64th) were drafted by the Prince Albert Raiders and Calgary Hitmen, respectively, in the third round. Both are committed to the Lancers for the 2025-26 season.
REGIONAL CONNECTIONS
The WHL draft’s first-round selections on May 7 included Consort native Will Kelts, the Northern Alberta Xtreme defenceman whom the Kelowna Rockets netted 20th overall. In the second round, the Prince George Cougars chose Macklin blue-liner Anderson Reschny (OHA Edmonton) 40th overall.
A day after the draft, Frazer moved back home and transferred to Lloydminster Comprehensive High School this week. While in Edmonton for most of this school year, he billeted with teammate Liam McFadden’s family. Also residing with them was goaltender Gavin Steeves, who previously billeted with Frazer’s family while playing with the Athletics.
McFadden, a defenceman, went to Lethbridge Hurricanes in third round, 54th overall. He was among six players from OHA Edmonton’s U15 prep team drafted this year.
Frazer believes the prep program in the capital city set him up well in his draft year, on and off the ice.
“I think it helped quite a bit,” he said. “Because, obviously, the U15 AAA Lloyd team struggled a bit this year. I think OHA has a lot of connections.
“Living away from home, it made me realize what I have to do to grow up and stuff like that,” he said. “My dad said I matured a little bit more. He could definitely tell.”
LIKE OILERS’ HYMAN
Coaches and scouts could tell how much Frazer improved as a player deemed worthy of WHL draft selection.
He has successfully tried to play like Edmonton Oilers forward Zach Hyman, who also happens to wear Frazer’s traditional jersey No. 18.
“I think maybe Hyman would be a good comparison,” Frazer said. “He gets to the dirty areas of the ice, he can score a lot of goals and just works hard overall.
“I usually wear No. 18, too, so I definitely watched him and studied him a
little bit more than a lot of the other players.
“I think I’m a 200-foot player, I get in the dirty areas a lot of the time, I can play physically, and I can put the puck in the net when I need to.”
All those attributes made Frazer an attractive pick for Spokane, regardless of his physical stature.
“Size is something that’s not as important to us as other elements that we look for, whether it be speed, hockey sense, skill and compete level,” Ross said. “We feel Josh checks a lot of those boxes. If he were six-two, obviously that would be great, but we feel that he doesn’t need to be the biggest player on the ice to make the biggest impact.
“We felt that’s what he was able to do, a lot of the nights, just watching him this year.”
Chris King, the new coach of the Lancers, had a similar reaction after scouting Frazer during the U18 team’s identification camp on the first weekend of May. He gave him high praise for his compete level all weekend.
Frazer gave a modest account of his performance at the Lancers’ 110-man camp.
“I thought I struggled a little bit,” he said. “I was pretty tired from Alberta Cup (the previous weekend). But I think, overall, I did pretty good.”
Frazer’s eventful off-season continues later this month when he and Mannville defenceman Cobin Garnett, the captain of the U15 AAA Lancers this year, travel to Minnesota to play in an international tournament.
Scott — Frazer’s Lloyd teammate at OHA Edmonton — had a firsthand account of Frazer’s progress this winter.
“He’s relentless in all areas of the ice,” Scott said. “He’s never giving up on a puck. He’s got a wicked shot and he’s a great skater as well.”
Along with Frazer, Scott, McFadden and Reschny, Brayden Tucker (Calgary) and Chayse Fedoriuk (Prince Albert) were drafted from the same OHA Edmonton team. This is the second consecutive year that Spokane has dipped into the Lloyd region on draft day.
Last year, the Chiefs selected forward Connor Nickle in the 10th round. The Cold Lake product spent the past season with the U18 AAA Lancers.
“His game is taking steps and maturing,” Ross said of Nickle.
“I think he’s doing the right things. We’re looking forward to seeing him back in training camp in the fall and seeing what his game looks like after another productive summer and see how he might fit in with our group, whether that’s (now or) in years to come.”
For a feature on Calgary Hitmen
prospect Kael Scott, formerly of Bonnyville and now of Lloydminster, see meridiansource.ca and next week’s edition.
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