This is Part 3 in a multi-part series on Port Moody's only NHL player, Kent Johnson.

There’s a growing sentiment throughout the Lower Mainland that the North Shore Winter Club is the place to go if you’re looking for a career in hockey. One only needs to look at the star-studded list of alumni to see its success — back-to-back first-overall picks Macklin Celebrini (San Jose Sharks) and Connor Bedard (Chicago Blackhawks) and Olympic Gold medalist Kent Johnson himself. As the years have passed, the talent level on the North Shore has only grown more and more.

“Just watching them out there, it’s amazing. They’re all so uniquely talented and skilled, and just their work ethic, their compete, and their drive to get better, and their love for the game, it’s really cool to see. To be able to be out there with them, that’s pretty special as well,” defenceman Jayden Lee, who played with Johnson at the North Shore Winter Club, said of the talent in Celebrini, Bedard, and Johnson being fostered throughout the program.

“They have that little rink, the other little rink, two rinks underneath, and it just gives the members incredible access to being able to be out there, and so much of that, it’s deliberate practice, but it’s also play,” RINK Hockey Academy Coach Maco Balkovec added on the impact of a program like North Shore Winter Club on hockey in BC. “Kent will probably tell you, one of his favorite things to do is play 3-on-3 down on that little sheet.”

The commonality between Celebrini and Bedard is that both players are from North Vancouver. Most of the names listed as North Shore Winter Club alumni are from the area — save Johnson. So what factored into the decision to head to the sheets of ice across the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge?

“I think I was 14 or whatever there, maybe even 13, and at that point I’d played every sport, but I kind of decided I loved hockey, and I thought I was pretty good at it. So I kind of was like, to my parents, ‘hey, I’d love to get the chance to play more, more ice time, more practices, and quit the other sports — if that was okay.’ They talked, the two of them, and kind of figured out if that would be possible. A few months later, they asked me if I’d want to play at North Shore Winter club, if that was possible.”

Possible, it was. The North Shore Winter Club was where Johnson’s hockey career first took flight, leading him to the BCHL, NCAA, and eventually the NHL in 2021–22. The program has been massive for many players’ development from both on and off-the-ice perspectives.

“Just a great program [...] there’s a lot of ice time available for the kids. It’s almost like babysitting. [My parents] dropped me off there in the summer, even in the winter, and I’d be at the North Shore Winter Club all day with all the other kids, just playing hockey, going on the ice, going in the pool, eating. I was very lucky to get to do that. That’s definitely when my hockey development kind of became a bit more serious and skyrocketed.”

What may be the most notable part of the North Shore Winter Club is the community it has fostered between BC’s best hockey players. Not only are there big groups of pro players and NSWC alumni who skate together in the summers, but there are also connections between alumni that remain strong even years after being made. Some of Johnson’s best friends were made at that very club located just off the Trans-Canada Highway.

“Tyler Cristall is my best friend. I met him there playing. We were obviously there a lot. Jake McLean as well, we’re really close friends still, and were always there at the club,” he said when thinking back to some of his former teammates on the North Shore. “I still skate with them sometimes in the summer. It’s really fun to get on the ice with them. We still skate at North Shore in the summers now.”