When Nicholas Johnson joined the WHL as a member of the Portland Winterhawks in 2022, playing in a smaller community on the prairies was a long way from his mind. Years later, he spent the majority of his time in the WHL in Brandon and he’s all the happier for it.
The 2005-born forward from Calgary wrapped up his WHL career this season with his most productive years by far coming during his time in Brandon. Overall, he played 136 of his 229 career games in Brandon colours and scored 40 of his 48 goals as a Wheat King.
“It’s a second home away from home and it was a lot of fun here,” Johnson said of his time in Brandon. “We had a great group of guys and I enjoyed every day here.”
Johnson didn’t exactly get eased into his time in Brandon. He was acquired on trade deadline day, which always falls right in the dead of winter in early January, in a trade that saw Wheat Kings’ captain Nate Danielson go the other direction. He, along with defenseman Rhett Ravndahl, had to pack up and trek nearly 1400 miles to Wheat City to join their new team.
“It was cold, really cold, a lot of snow,” Johnson remembered about his arrival in Brandon. “But walking into that team that year, what I remember most is it was a great group of guys. I still talk to all of those guys that moved on from that team. They really made me feel welcome from day one and I was very fortunate.”
Coming from Portland (a city whose metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million) and being born and raised in Calgary (just under 1.5 million), Brandon seemed awfully small at first to the emerging power forward. But Johnson quickly realized there was a major advantage to Brandon’s smaller size that helped him feel even more at home.
“I think it was a lot better, so the guys could get together and hang out more and spend more time together with one another,” he said. “It created more of a team bond. In Portland, everyone was so spread out, it was more limited interactions with people. In that sense, it was a good transition.”
Slowly but steadily, off-ice comfort turned into on-ice results. He turned in a career season in his first full year as a Wheat King, and likely would’ve hit the 20 goal mark for the first time if not for an early-season injury. He broke the 20-goal barrier in his second full season in Brandon and set offensive career highs across the board.
“I was more confident going into games,” Johnson said. “Being an older guy, knowing how the league worked and everything like that, that really helped me, especially playing for a team in each conference I knew both styles of game.”
Johnson saved his best statistical season for last, and it was all the more impressive as he was put in a role he’d never played before at the WHL level as a centreman. With some help from his coaches, he gradually got used to the demands of a new position.
“Whether it was taking draws after practice or showing me little things in the game I needed to work on, they helped me a lot with the transition.”
Now that it’s come to an end, Johnson, who remembered his teammates from that first year in Brandon more than anything else, turns to the dressing room again when asked what he’s going to remember most about his years as a Wheat King.
“There’s obviously all the on-ice stuff,” he said. “40 wins in my last year was pretty cool to accomplish that, being an older guy on the team. But after the games, whether it was everyone going for a bite to eat or when we were all hanging out together in a billets’ pool or something like that, that’s what I’ll remember most about my time here, how close the guys were together.”
Johnson’s hockey career is far from finished, however. With a new pathway opening for CHL players in the NCAA, Johnson will take his talents to Ferris State in Michigan next season and try to use that as a springboard to the pros, one that would’ve been unavailable to him when his WHL career began.
“Everyone was very fortunate to have that open up, for sure,” said Johnson. “It gives you a couple more years to develop your game and make that transition if you want to turn pro a little bit easier. I was very lucky to get in after my last season in the WHL. I was very fortunate.”
And now, with the benefit of a four-year career’s worth of wisdom under his belt, Johnson knows what he would tell his younger self, and what he would tell the younger players of the Wheat Kings, and its remarkably similar to advice he was given as a young player, advice he now fully understands.
“Take it all in, because it goes quickly,” Johnson said. “Now that I’m 20 and my WHL career is over, back three years ago I thought it was going to be the best few years of my life with all the games and all the time you spend at the rink and all that, and looking back at it now, it really does go by quickly. Don’t take any moment for granted.”
