NewsLight is running a multi-part story about Port Moody's only NHL player, Kent Johnson.
How often do you encounter something unexpected within your everyday surroundings?
When you grow up in the Tri-Cities, it’s something that happens pretty frequently. The mild climate and mountainous landscape welcome all sorts of interesting things into the little bubble that surrounds your home.
You may be wheeling your green can out at the beginning of the day when you catch sight of a bear lumbering around the back of your house. Maybe you’re walking down to Coquitlam Centre when a hummingbird floats gently over your head.
The Tri-Cities, as small as it is big, is home to a wide range of people, cultures, and experiences. And you may be surprised by what you end up finding in your backyard.
Near the top of the Coquitlam Crunch, near the Port Moody border, sits Bramblewood Park. There’s an elementary school, a set of pickleball courts, and a paved area complete with basketball hoops.
There’s also a place to play street hockey, ideal for when the weather’s warm. Thousands of people walk past it every year as they ascend the ‘Crunch.’
It will likely surprise most climbers to learn that one current NHL player honed their skills at that very place - Port Moody’s very own, Kent Johnson.
Johnson, a forward with the Columbus Blue Jackets, grew up playing hockey and other sports near his home.
“We’d go to Bramblewood Park and play street hockey — that was a fun thing to do. We’d play street hockey on our own street a lot. I feel like that was kind of the biggest thing for me,” Johnson shared of his summer pastimes as a kid growing up in the Tri-Cities. “Hanging out with my friends, running around, playing sports. That was typically what we did.”
Johnson — whose life journey has taken him everywhere from Trail, to Michigan, to scoring the “Golden Goal” at the 2022 World Junior Championship, and even to China for the 2022 Winter Olympics — grew up in Port Moody first and foremost.
It’s a city that many would love to live in, made up of a plentiful mix of ocean waves, mountain heights, and forested trails perfect for running along during off-seasons. But, as you may expect, the place that housed much of Johnson’s free time was Port Moody Rec Centre, whether he was on the ice or off it.
“I was there a lot. I would always be there watching my brother’s games too, and babysitting or whatever. I’d be there at practice with my mom there, dad, and so I would just be hanging out at the rink, running around with some of the other little brothers, or playing hockey at the rink as well, just stickhandling on the ice.”
“So many memories at the Rec Centre.”
With high-end talents like Johnson, many may wonder whether the NHL was always the end-goal or not. When you look at a player like Johnson, someone who has enjoyed nearly five seasons as part of the world’s biggest professional hockey league, it may feel like the sport was always his calling card.
Former sports he played — baseball, soccer, basketball, and track — may have seemed like they fell to the wayside. But for Johnson, playing hockey wasn’t about making the NHL at the beginning of it. It was simply a means of having fun.
“I wouldn’t even call it practice,” he explained. “[I’d] always just have fun playing in the basement, shooting pucks with my brother. And then we would have the normal team practices, and I’d go to stick and puck with my brother and my dad, like drop in hockey with all those random people out there. We would just have fun and play games and do drills.
“It was never like I thought I was doing this to train or make the NHL or anything when I was younger. It was kind of just having fun playing hockey and being competitive.”
Up tomorrow, Part II: It Takes a Village to Raise an NHL Player.