On the east wall of the Blackhawks Store on Michigan Avenue, seven of the eight jersey displays are dedicated to Connor Bedard.
Seth Jones gets one display. A few Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane jerseys still are hanging on other racks, mostly on sale. Other than that, however, the Blackhawks Store has become the Bedard Store.
‘‘He’s the guy right now,’’ a store employee said Monday.
That’s an understatement. Despite the fact he hasn’t played an NHL game, the fact he hasn’t signed an NHL contract and the fact he hasn’t even turned 18, Bedard already has become a Chicago sports icon.
And demand isn’t high only in the city. Around the country and the world, Hawks fans are going to great lengths to get No. 98 sweaters of their own.
Isto Paavola, a fan in Finland, promised his younger brother in January — while watching the world junior championships — that he would buy them jerseys if Bedard ended up on the Hawks.
This past weekend, he fulfilled his promise. The jerseys are being shipped across the Atlantic right now.
‘‘I can guarantee he’s pretty pumped to get it,’’ Paavola wrote.
Nick DiMaria, a fan in Chicago, owned one of the earliest Bedard Hawks jerseys in existence. His father-in-law, a longtime season-ticket holder, gave one to him for his birthday in March, two months before the lottery even took place.
‘‘When I saw they had an 11% chance [of winning the lottery], it was a huge family joke,’’ DiMaria said. ‘‘ ‘You’re such an idiot! Why would you buy that jersey?’ ’’
After the Hawks won the lottery in May, DiMaria and his father-in-law went out to a bar to celebrate, with DiMaria wearing the jersey over his shirt.
Anthony Pellegrino, a fan in Tennessee, at least waited until after the lottery to buy his Bedard jersey, but he still took a sizable risk. Ordering through an unlicensed website, he was able to get a ‘‘C’’ ironed onto the front. He is that confident the Hawks’ kid wonder soon will be named captain.
‘‘Toews has so many similarities to Bedard,’’ Pellegrino said. ‘‘There’s something special about him. We all know what’s coming.’’
And then there’s Brandon Bajema, a fan in California — or at least until recently. Having just sold his house, he and his family are spending the summer taking an RV trip across the country.
Currently in Montana, they’re due to arrive in Chicago in middle-to-late July. And when they get here, a hand-stitched Bedard jersey will be waiting for Bajema.
‘‘One of the moments I’m most looking forward to is going to the store on Michigan Avenue, picking it up and putting it on,’’ Bajema said. ‘‘It feels weird to wear the jersey of a guy 20 years younger than me, but I can’t wait to go to the store and take a picture outside.’’
That age difference is one of the strangest aspects of the Bedard mania that, as expected, has spread throughout the Hawks’ fan base.
Bedard might be a generational hockey talent, but he’s a relatively typical 17-year-old kid in every other way. He talks like one, he thinks like one and he acts like one. A non-sports fan who walked past him this week in the West Loop would notice nothing extraordinary whatsoever.
He does have some pre-existing familiarity with intense spotlights and pressure, and his humility and discipline should keep him grounded through all the hoopla to come. But he doesn’t have anything close to the ego and swagger one would expect from a No. 1 pick.
‘‘I think I’m a pretty normal guy,’’ Bedard said Saturday. ‘‘And, for me, that’s really important. I don’t see myself as any different just because there’s maybe a little more attention on the outside. I just want to be a good teammate and fit in with the locker room.’’
Fellow top prospect Kevin Korchinski, who played alongside Bedard at the world juniors, and Hawks coach Luke Richardson have noticed that, too.
‘‘He was obviously really special at the world juniors; what he did was remarkable,’’ Korchinski said. ‘‘[To] see him do it live was really cool. But what you don’t get to see is him off the ice, just him as a friend, whether it’s just after games having a conversation with him and talking to him. [He’s a] great guy.’’
Said Richardson: ‘‘He’s got the personality and the drive away from the rink to handle all the extra attention that he gets. He knows how to handle it; it doesn’t really change him. I think he wants to get through that part of it just so [he] can . . . get back to the shooting room or back on the ice.’’
So while red-and-black Bedard jerseys fly off shelves and get packed onto trucks and planes headed in all directions, essentially replacing Kane and Toews jerseys as the standard uniform of any Hawks fan, the player who will don that jersey on United Center ice simply is looking forward to getting home to Vancouver and celebrating his 18th birthday July 17.
Such is the juxtaposition of this weird yet exciting time for the Hawks’ organization.
