Connor Dewar's job is to 'be hard to play against,' and the Penguins forward is doing just that

Connor Dewar grew up in a town so small, it didn’t even have an ice rink available in the summer.

The Pas, Manitoba, six hours northwest of Winnipeg, is not a typical NHL breeding ground — the Penguins forward is just the third NHL player from the town of less than 6,000 people.

Unlike peers in bigger cities, Dewar wasn’t competing against other elite players every week. Weekend tournaments required hours-long trips through the province. But Dewar still spent the long, brutal The Pas winters honing his craft in the backyard.

“For the hours I missed out on, I made up for on my outdoor rink,” the 26-year-old told the Post-Gazette.

The toughness he developed in a town with an average January high temperature of about 7 degrees Fahrenheit transformed Dewar into a hard-nosed player who’s no