There are some hints that it is a playoff season for Maddox Schultz and his household.
His hair is most blatant. Like many hockey staff habits when the playoffs start, Regina Putt Canadians within the Saskatchewan U-18 AAA League dyed blondes with hair.
His perspective can be slightly extra severe.
“It is a complicated factor. I feel it is one thing you are getting used to, as a result of as you become old and also you get higher at it, I feel this simply retains coming,” Maddox stated. “So that you simply needed to put together. I feel I’ve achieved a very good job with that.”
Schultz celebrated his fifteenth birthday on March fifteenth. Over the previous 12 months he has been granted permission from Hockey Saskatchewan to play for the 14-year-old Pat Canadian.
He led the under-18 league in objectives, assists and factors and was named probably the most invaluable participant within the prestigious Circle Ok Basic over the vacation season.
Maddox and her youthful sister Sydney spent their complete lives on the Rink. His mother and father, Vicki and David, are elite-level determine skating coaches.
“We had been raised a bit at Rink as a result of after we had been actually few, my mother and father needed to train,” Sydney stated.
“We introduced their playpen to the hyperlink, so that they had been their lifelong hyperlink rats,” Vicki stated.
Leveling up in hockey is nothing new to Maddox. At each step he performed towards older, larger and typically quicker gamers.
Final season, Maddox was referred to as to play with the Regina Putt Canadian as a 13-year-old from the U-15 staff.
His head coach Ryan Hodgins stated it was straightforward.
“It is positively distinctive to have a participant of that degree at that age, however I’ve seen him being a particular participant since I used to be taking part in minor hockey with Maddox.”
Maddox’s play turned its head all around the nation. Many scouts rank him as the highest Canadian participant born in 2010.
Todd Liplinger is a scout with the Moose Jaw Warriors and has been scouting within the Western Hockey League for over 30 years. He praises the younger hockey participant and compares him to the best participant of all time.
“He is constructed like Crosby, he can rating like Crosby and get solidly across the web,” Liplinger stated. “His pictures are already very sturdy and powerful for the 14-year-old, however his greatest attribute is his skating.”
It will likely be a vital three months for Maddox. Regina Putt Canadians are first ending within the common season, hoping for a league title and potential anchorage on the Tels Cup Nationwide Championship.
Maddox Schultz was given distinctive standing on the age of 14 to play within the U18 AAA Hockey League. The league’s prime scorer, simply 15, is predicted to be primary within the upcoming Western Hockey League draft, however this time he would not search distinctive standing. That is as a result of beneath the brand new Hockey Canada guidelines, he may stay U18 AAA Regina Putt Canadian and be allowed to play 34 video games within the WHL subsequent 12 months.
The Western Hockey League prospect draft can even be showing in Might. Maddox might be Regina’s first participant because the draft started in 1990.
There was a saying that Maddox was following within the footsteps of present 15-year-old gamers Landon Dupont’s Everett Silvertips and Connor Bedard of the Regina Pats, searching for distinctive standing for the 2025-26 WHL season.
The Schultz household determined earlier this 12 months to not search distinctive standing and as a substitute selected a brand new rule referred to as the West Canada Improvement Mannequin. It is a pilot mission created in collaboration with the Hockey League and Junior A League in Western Canada.
It will enable Maddox to stay on Regina’s Underneath-18 staff, whereas additionally taking part in as much as 34 video games with Western Hockey League groups.
“It was an easy resolution for a household,” stated Maddox’s father David. “The distinctive standing title, the gamers who wore it, extremely imply they will do with it, however we did not assume it was proper for him and our household.”
“It is a hybrid possibility in its personal proper, and it was actually interesting to us once more simply to guard it, not simply pushing,” Vicki stated.
Schultz has all the time been shut and shut, going from hyperlinks to hyperlinks, video games, competitions, ice classes to off-ice coaching. They’re their very own finest assist group.
Even at such a younger age, Maddox is conscious of how essential his household is and the way he can seize his time with them.
“I feel I’ve to benefit from the time I am with them and benefit from the time I’ve with them as a result of they’re my individuals,” he stated. “Once I was outdated and I used to be on the bar with pals and others, I bear in mind on a regular basis I spent with them.”
