Former Spruce Kings captain returns to scene of some of his best junior hockey memories

There’s a life-sized photo pasted on the wall outside the Prince George Spruce Kings dressing room at Kopar Memorial Arena.

It features a wide-eyed Kyle Johnson in seventh heaven turning away from the net with raised arms seconds after he scored the overtime winner in Game 5 of the Coastal Conference championship series against the Powell River Kings.

It was a monumental moment in Spruce Kings history. Johnson’s goal guaranteed that for the first time the team was playing for the BC Hockey League championship.

Unfortunately for the Spruce Kings that final series did not go their way and they lost the league final in five games to the Wenatchee Wild. But it set the tone for the following season when they finally did win that BCHL crown.

By that time their captain, Johnson, was off to Yale University and the start of college hockey career that spanned four years and led to a two-year stint in France playing pro hockey.

Johnson, now 26, returned to his junior hockey roots in Prince George last weekend (Feb. 7-8) as an assistant coach for the Coquitlam Express when they took on the Spruce Kings in a two-game series. The Spruce Kings won both games by 3-2 counts. 

Friday's game ended in overtime, which salvaged a point for the Express, and after the game the Citizen spoke to Johnson about his three seasons with the Spruce Kings and how that experience changed his life. .

“One of the biggest goals I ever scored in my career was here in this building - It sent the team to the finals,” said Johnson.

Johnson grew up in Port Moody and was part of the Burnaby Winter Club talent pipeline that was the breeding ground for a long line of Spruce Kings, including Ethan de Jong, Nolan Welsh, Ben Poisson, Nick Poisson and Nick Bochen.

Johnson played one season with the major midget Vancouver Northeast Chiefs before he came to Prince George in 2015 and as a 17-year-old BCHL rookie that season he had a major impact. He played in all 58 games and was one of the team’s leading scorers with 41 points. However, the young Kings team missed the playoffs and in the following season they lasted just five postseason games.

But the best was yet to come.  

In 2017-18, the Spruce Kings went 33-17-4-0 to win the Coastal Division regular season title, then won back-to-back seven-game series against Chilliwack and Surrey to advance to the Coastal Conference final against Powell River.

In Game 5, facing the prospect of having to travel back to Powell River and resume the series in less than two days, defenceman Dylan Anhorn tied it with 92 seconds left with goalie Evan Debrouwer on the bench. Johnson’s series-winner, 8:06 into overtime, came after his linemate de Jong stripped the puck away from the Powell River defence and his shot bounced off the end boards to a waiting Johnson who found the net with a backhander.

"It would have been a struggle to go back on the bus and give them any momentum at all. It’s a long difficult trip," said Johnson, in his postgame interview that night. "There's no hiding that so we had extra motivation to get the series-clincher and stay here to get some long-needed rest.”

Seven years later, that goal was still fresh in Johnson's memories, and he only had to look up at the championship banners that hang from the rafters at Kopar for a reminder.

“We had a lot of hard-fought scrappy games, much like the spirit that lives on in that team over there,” said Johnson.

“I admire what they’re doing now, obviously from this side of it I get a completely different perspective. It’s really fun to come here and see Prince George Spruce Kings hockey and be a part of what they have to offer.”

He says he’ll always remember watching the webcasts of the Spruce Kings’ magical playoff run in 2019 in which they went an astounding 16-1 all the way to their first Fred Page Cup championship, with Adam Maglio behind the bench.

“That was so cool, I remember watching the dying minutes of the game (in the final against Vernon) in my dorm on campus, in utter  shock at how cool it was for those guys to make a historic run and do it in 17 games,” said Johnson. “That team made some crazy history.”

Johnson earned a degree in cognitive science at Yale then spent two seasons in France split between with the Nueilly-sur-Marne Bisons (with former Spruce Kings forward Jeremiah Leudtke) and Courchevel-Meribel-Pralognan Bouquetins. He retired as a player after the 2023-34 season

“I loved Yale, it was a great personal experience on a lot of levels, the hockey was challenging, the school was challenging and like the model of the BCHL and sending players to college it beings the best out of people and I was really grateful I got to do it,” said Johnson.

“My time here in Prince George was instrumental in getting me there. I’ve been lucky to see a lot of places and play hockey literally all over the world. I couldn’t say goodbye to the game yet so I took a coaching job.”

Kyle’s brother Kent, four years younger, followed him from the Burnaby Winter Club to the BCHL, not with Prince George but in Trail, where he became a league MVP centre in three seasons with the Smoke Eaters before going on the University of Michigan.

Two years into his college hockey career he jumped to the NHL with the Columbus Blue Jackets, the team that drafted him fifth overall in 2021. Now in his third NHL season he’s one of the team’s top scorers with 16 goals and 35 points in 41 games.

Kyle was in attendance and Rogers Centre in Vancouver when the Blue Jackets played the Canucks on Dec. 6, a rare Friday when the Express were not playing.

“He’s doing real well on the ice and they as a team in Columbus have rallied around tragedy (with Johnny Gaudreau’s sudden death on Aug. 29, 2024), it’s obviously been a really difficult season, that doesn’t say enough of what they’ve gone through,” he said. “But every time I speak to my brother he’s really happy about the teammates he has and for the first time in a long time they’re in the wild-card hunt.”

Kyle says it’s a little-known fact that Kent attended the Spruce Kings’ main camp in 2016 when he was only 14 and they played in one BCHL exhibition game together. Kyle centred a line with Welsh on the left side and Kent on right wing.

“We shared a really cool week or 10 days here between his WHL camp (with Everett) and his U18 season,” said Kyle.

“He was a 14- turning 15-year-old against the Vernon Vipers and the story goes on that in the one career shift of organized hockey 5-on-5 we have, we’re plus-1 with an assist (to Kyle) on a Nolan Welsh tip-in.

“We only got the one shift together, unfortunately, but there was always plenty of summer hockey. In the end, he was looking to carve his own path as an independent young man and part of that was his personality, his hardheadedness created all the work ethic and strong characteristics that have got him where he is. He wanted to go his own way and he had a really good opportunity with a coach he liked in Trail (Jeff Tambellini) and it was a wonderful fit for him.”

The Spruce Kings (15-20-3-1, ninth in Coastal Conference) leave Thursday for the long ride to Vancouver Island. They'll play the Cowichan Valley Capitals (22-14-3-0, fourth in Coastal) on Friday (7 p.m.), then face the surging Nanaimo Clippers (20-18-2-0, seventh in Coastal) on Saturday. 

Prince George has 15 games remaining and is seven points behind the Langley Rivermen for the eighth and final Coastal playoff spot.