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SYDNEY:<\/strong> Hard work and heart is what got Ryan Francis to the Cape Breton Eagles of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. And it\u2019s what landed him on the radar of NHL scouts heading into the 2020 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that the slick playmaking Beaver Bank product has been selected by the Calgary Flames in the fifth round, 143 overall on Oct. 7, he aims to continue putting in the hard work that will one day land him at the pro hockey level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m very happy, super excited,\u201d Francis said from Sydney. \u201cIt\u2019s been a long day. I\u2019m very honoured and happy that the Calgary Flames drafted me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a dream come true. I\u2019m very excited.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n He put up 72 points in 64 games during the 2019-2020 campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”34″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Francis was projected to go between round two and four in the draft, However, he fell, but that didn\u2019t bother the forward, who had family and friends join him for the Draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe were all watching the draft (round two started at 12:30 p.m.), hanging out in the living room,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen the news broke, we were very excited. They were super happy for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was a great moment. Something I\u2019ll never forget.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate group=”8″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n He said wherever he went it was just a number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhere you get drafted is just a number, it\u2019s just one step in a long road of hard work,\u201d said Francis, ana assistant captain in Cape Breton. \u201cWherever I got drafted wasn\u2019t a huge concern for me. It wasn\u2019t a big deal, but obviously the higher you go the better chances you have at certain things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s just a number, but now I\u2019m going to continue to push every single day to become the best I can, and one day hopefully play professional hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Francis now turns his attention to a weekend set against the Charlottetown Islanders at Center 200, with less pressure then he had even starting this season with the NHL Draft on the horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI have a little bit of that stress off me and can just focus on playing hockey and going back to what I love doing with a little bit less stress,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m excited to be drafted and now ready to go back to the rink each and every day, pushing hard, and helping Cape Breton have a great season.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”78″]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SYDNEY: Hard work and heart is what got Ryan Francis to the Cape Breton Eagles of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. And it\u2019s what landed him on the radar of NHL scouts heading into the 2020 NHL Draft. Now that the slick playmaking Beaver Bank product has been selected by the Calgary Flames in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,21],"tags":[10,801],"class_list":["post-17235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-sports","tag-beaver-bank","tag-ryan-francis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}