Although Connor Bedard and Travis Kelce play in two very different cities, it's clear there is a ton of respect between the greatest rookie in the National Hockey League and one of the best tight ends to ever play football.
Kelce recently shouted out Bedard on the newest episode of his New Heights podcast, although he struggled to pronounce the 18-year-olds last name.
“This is like the rookie that the Blackhawks just got that I was just talking about…Connor Bed-nard or Connor Bend-dard,” Kansas City's starting tight end went with. “I don’t even know how to say his last name. I just know I love watching that dude play hockey.”
The clip came when Travis and brother Jason Kelce — the Philadelphia Eagles starting center — decided to pick their all-NFL starting five hockey teams, per NHL.com's Anna Kulesa.
Bedard's great response
Despite the butchering of his last name, Connor Bedard took it all in stride in his response on Friday.
“Yeah, I saw that. A couple of guys were showing him unable to pronounce my name,” Bedard said with a smile. “I think he got it right the other day, someone was saying. Yeah, that’s funny how he was struggling there.”
Definitely not a hard last name to pronounce, but it seems to have led to some bonding between the two athletes. Bedard even expressed his desire to hit the ice with the NFL star after Kelce said on the show he wants to “hit up the Blackhawks, get in net or something,” per NHL.com's Dan O'Leary.
“That’d be cool. Obviously he’s a Chicago fan so that’s pretty sweet,” Bedard explained. “You see guys like [former NFL All-Pro tight end Rob] Gronkowski and I think JJ Watt went out with the team. That’d be cool. Maybe try to teach him how to play hockey a little bit.”
Bedard also expressed his excitement at even being mentioned by Travis Kelce:
“I thought that was cool for sure. Obviously one of the best football players in the world, so yeah, that’s great,” the electric rookie added.
It seems about time to get Connor Bedard on the New Heights podcast.
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