ERIE, Pa. - Erie Insurance Arena shares locker-rooms with a minor-league baseball stadium and makes up the ballparks left-field facade. Across the street, adjacent to a tire warehouse, is a tiny tan building with red, white and blue trim that houses the Erie Otters offices.Here, in this working-class town of 100,000 in northwestern Pennsylvania, a star is being born.One day, Connor McDavid will take the ice at the Bell Centre and Madison Square Garden. But for now, hes happy to call Erie home.I love it here, said McDavid. Its great. Im sure youve only seen the downtown part of Erie and its not particularly nice, but where we all live, its beautiful. Its a great area.At least a two-hour drive from anywhere in Ontario and far from the centre of the hockey universe or even OHL hot beds like Kitchener or London, McDavid is just far enough away to keep the spotlight from being blinding.Theres obviously the media in Toronto and hockey in general is huge in Canada and specifically Toronto, Otters assistant coach and former NHL defenceman Jay McKee said. Theres less media, theres less outside attention, and as a player whos focused on the team and developing himself, I think thats a huge benefit for him to be here.No matter where he plays, the 17-year-old McDavid attracts attention. Hes being touted as The Next One and is the front-runner to go first overall in the 2015 NHL draft as a once-in-a-generation talent.Experiencing a lifetime of hockey hype before turning 18 has prepared McDavid for every bit of what hes facing in his draft year. Hes conditioned to deflect the attention rather than absorb it.Its all right, McDavid said during a recent pre-practice interview. Its not too crazy. Its something that Ive been getting more and more used to over the past couple years. It never really gets old. Its still a lot of fun, Im still a young guy, so the attention is something that is fun to have.Dominating hockey is still fun for McDavid. But being unquestionably the best player in junior hockey and the presumptive No. 1 pick sometimes comes at the cost of what he called crazy and unreachable expectations.You can have a good game and thats just the expectation, McDavid said. Its not like you did something good, its just what they expect out of you. Sometimes that can be a little bit stressful and annoying, but I guess it sometimes comes with the territory.McDavid, who was born in Richmond Hill, Ont., and grew up in nearby Newmarket, put up seven goals and 13 assists in his first seven games this season, leading the Otters to a 6-0-1 start. At that three-point-a-game pace, hed enter or surpass the territory of what Sidney Crosby did with Rimouski Oceanic of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League at the same age.Usually one or two times a game you see something that you just didnt expect, Otters coach Kris Knoblauch said. Certainly when he has the puck its exciting and youre expecting something to happen offensively with it, whether hes setting up a teammate or creating a scoring chance by himself.Those abilities have him atop arguably the strongest draft class in a decade and are so tantalizing that struggling NHL teams are hoping to win the McDavid derby and punch their ticket back to prominence.McDavid already has NHL abilities, according to McKee. But with several months to sharpen his game before the top league in the world comes calling, hes just getting started.BETTER THAN CROSBYMcDavid doesnt remember the first time someone compared him to Crosby. Eleven months after Sportsnet Magazines cover showed him with the headline, Better than Crosby, the 17-year-old still thinks it was pretty insane.Its obviously a tremendous honour to be named in the same breath with someone like that, McDavid said. But by no means do I think Im deserving.Scouts disagree. In revealing the International Scouting Service pre-season rankings, director Dennis MacInnins said: Having the chance to scout Sidney Crosby at the same age, McDavid is even more impressive, true superstar potential.McKee sees the same things. He played with Crosby on the 2009-10 Pittsburgh Penguins and that was when the pride of Cole Harbour, N.S., was already grown up at 22 and in the middle of a run that included a Stanley Cup and Olympic gold medal.The comparables between him and Sid, its everything, McKee said. Its the way he works off the ice, the way he communicates in the dressing room, the work ethic he puts out on the ice in practice. ...Sids a hard-working guy that leads by example on and off the ice and hes very humble, very quiet, not real flashy. Connors the kind of guy when he scores goals hes not out there riding his stick or celebrating in fancy fashion, he just wants to get the job done.More often than not, McDavid does get the job done. He was a point-a-game player as an OHL rookie at the ages of 15 and 16 and had 99 points last season.Hes the type of guy that every time he steps on the ice, he seems to be better than the time before, said Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Connor Brown, who led the OHL in scoring in 2013-14 thanks in part to Otters teammate McDavid. I saw him play this summer and he was 10 steps beyond anything he was last year.Thats a scary improvement curve.Fellow 2015 draft prospect Dylan Strome, whos on the same power-play unit as McDavid in Erie, said he and his teammates always have to be prepared for McDavid to dish them the puck.You can just learn so many little things from him on the ice thats so special, said Strome, whose older brother Ryan plays for the New York Islanders Hes such a world-class player that every time he does something on the ice, you can learn from it.Lauded for his vision, McDavid isnt quite sure where it came from or how it developed. Shrugging but smiling, he said: I guess Im an OK passer.Thats kind of like LeBron James saying hes an OK basketball player. Take it from Brown, who enjoyed a 45-goal, 128-point season alongside McDavid: along with speed and creativity, passing is what makes him great.If he sees a guys open, its going to get there no matter how many sticks are in the way or whos in between it, said BrownA 200-FOOT PLAYEREven after big centre Jack Eichel drew comparisons to Mario Lemieux from ex-Penguins coach Ed Olczyk last month, McDavid is considered a strong favourite to be the top pick in June.But his game is by his own admission still a work in progress.To play in the NHL, you have to be a full 200-foot player, you have to be able to score from the outside and do all that stuff, McDavid said. Those are two areas that Im not particularly good at. I think I need to be better in my own zone and I need to be able to score more from the outside.McDavids progression is already evident early in his third season with the Otters. Listed in the 2012-13 OHL media guide at five-foot-10 and 155 pounds, hes now six-foot-one and 187 pounds.Growth — literally — was the first thing Brown noticed when seeing him over the summer.He worked really hard on putting on weight this summer, and his speed its even faster than it was before, Brown said. His puck protection, just because hes stronger and stuff like that. Hes not going to be easy to knock off the puck.McDavid said hes bigger and stronger and feeling pretty good about that. He has developed the kind of professional size and strength to go along with his already-advanced skills.With all that coming along nicely, McDavid could coast through his final junior season. But he still feels like he has something to prove.Youre never done as an athlete, you can never be satisfied and youve always got to be working hard to be at the top of your game, McDavid said. Youve got to prove to scouts and all that that I am everything that some people say about me, and to others Ive got to prove that theyre wrong about me and that they should believe everything that some people say.HANDLING THE HYPESeth Jones tried as hard as he could to avoid reading stories about himself leading up to the 2013 draft, and the defenceman only found out when his mother told him. Nathan MacKinnon let the pressure get to him and was rattled when he got off to a slow start.Its pretty annoying, Jones said of the draft-year hype. Its tough to just focus on playing hockey. Thats what you want to do. You got people always writing articles, good or bad, the rankings come out RIGHT before the playoffs and it seems like they try to get in your head.MacKinnon said looking back it was stupid to get bothered by the intense scrutiny. After going first overall to the Colorado Avalanche and then winning the Calder Trophy as the rookie of the year, his advice to McDavid and Eichel was to not read about themselves.Jones, who was picked fourth by the Nashville Predators, got more attention during his final season with the Western Hockey Leagues Portland Winterhawks than he does now.Everyone wants you to do something wrong, Jones said. Everyone wants to see your every move, what youre doing, and theyre always comparing stats and stuff like that.When MacKinnons Halifax Mooseheads met Joness Winterhawks in the 2013 Memorial Cup it was a chance for everyone to compare the two biggest-named prospects against each other.It was Nathan vs. Seth, it wasnt Halifax vs. Portland, so that kind of got a little bit annoying, MacKinnon said. It was pretty hectic.With McDavid in the OHL and Eichel in college at Boston University, the top 2015 prospects will likely face that situation leading up to the New Years Eve showdown between Canada and the United States at the world junior championship. Eichel said theres no real in-game battles and he was just looking forward to facing McDavid in Montreal.But meeting only once or twice wont do anything to quell the year-long competition between McDavid and Eichel. Each player is naturally working to be No. 1.You think about it a little bit, McDavid said. Obviously its hard not to. You want to be that first overall pick.But thats not any extra pressure for McDavid, who without the aid of media training has grown accustomed to being the centre of attention. In the process he learned to filter what he keeps track of.Everyones got a list and at the end of the day, the draft will eventually come and whoevers on the stand, whoever they want to take, theyll take, McDavid said. Theres nothing I can say, I cant persuade someone to pick me. All I can do is just go out there and play my game and do my thing.___Follow @SWhyno on Twitter . - The Oakland Athletics say they are stopping negotiations to extend their lease at the Coliseum. . Murakami gracefully executed a double triple toe jump and a triple flip jump that put her at the top of a tightly contested race with 64.73 points, just ahead of Li Zijun of China on 62.
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