Kris Draper was born on May 24, 1971 in Toronto, Ontario. He was born into hockey. His father played at the college and semi-professional levels of hockey and was pretty good at it.
Kris, like his father, decided to pursue the sport that he loved. In his youth, he played with a great youth program in the Don Mills Flyers (same program that Anson Carter, Trevor Daley, Max Domi, Mitch Marner, John Madden, Larry Murphy, Darnell Nurse, Rick Tocchet and Joel Ward played in).