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MacKinnon dreamed of playing for Avs as a child

nathanmackinnongetty

Much has been made about high-end prospect Seth Jones’ childhood connections to the Colorado Avalanche, but fellow potential No. 1 pick Nathan MacKinnon apparently dreamed of wearing the burgundy and blue, too.

MacKinnon’s father Graham told the Denver Post that Nathan wrote that he wanted to play for the Halifax Mooseheads and then the Colorado Avalanche on a personalized hockey card when he was seven or eight years old.

“He said ‘I want to play for the Halifax Mooseheads, then I want to get drafted by Colorado and play with Joe Sakic,’ ” Graham MacKinnon said.

Aside from playing for instead of with Sakic, MacKinnon’s childhood prediction might just come true. (It’s worth noting that photographic evidence of this card hasn’t surfaced yet, so there’s the off chance that his dad is conducting some strange myth-making.)

His father marveled at Nathan’s drive (or some might say, tunnel vision) when it came to making it to the NHL.

“It almost scared me. At age 2, he took right away to skating,” Graham MacKinnon said. “I had trouble keeping up with him, no joke. We never pushed hockey on him at all. He just took to it right away, fell in love with it and hasn’t stopped. When he was 9 or 10, I’d sometimes say to him, ‘You know, not everyone makes it in hockey,’ and he’d just get mad. He’d say, ‘I’m playing hockey, I’m playing hockey. I don’t have a Plan B, I just have a Plan A.’ He’d say, ‘Plan B is just a distraction from Plan A,’ and he was so serious about it.”

Then again, maybe it’s due to his competitive nature.

Many athletes are described as the type of people who don’t want to lose at anything, something that his 19-year-old sister Sarah notices in Nathan.

“We had some fierce Scrabble games growing up,” Sarah MacKinnon said. “He wanted to win at that as much as anything else ever. Whatever it is, Nate just wants to win and be the best.”

Perhaps he’ll get his way - and in the sweater he dreamed of as a kid, to boot - then.