Johnson blends wit with knowledge behind North Stars bench

“I remember I was extremely disappointed [because] Kindersley had a strong team that year and Battlefords was kind of fighting for a playoff spot,” Johnson, now in his third season as the North Stars associate coach, said. “Unfortunately I was a stubborn kid and I told the previous head coach Ken Pearson that I wasn’t coming to play and I was thinking of being done hockey.”

If anyone knows ‘Johnny,’ they know that never happened.

He came to the Battlefords and played out his junior career here, compiling 99 points in 120 regular season games.

“Ultimately, it was just going back to having fun with hockey,” he explained. “There were a lot of people that played a factor in regaining that understanding of hockey and the ups and downs that come with that and embracing those kinds of challenges.

“I love everything about Battlefords. I think there’s a good core of people in this community that make the Battlefords North Stars, in my opinion, one of the best places to play junior hockey.”

Johnson, who grew up in Saskatoon but was born in Melville, just turned 25 this past weekend.

If you see him around the team, it’s weird to think he almost left the game. He can almost always been seen joking around with the players or with head coach Nate Bedford and trainer Robbie Tanner. Or with office manager Caitlyn Gray.

“He keeps it light in the room all the time,” North Stars forward Layne Young said. “He works hard [but] likes to have fun…I think that’s probably what makes him such a good coach.”

“He’s always the first to crack a joke or break the ice,” Tanner said. “The first time I met him was at [former coach] Kevin [Hasselberg’s] house. We were having dinner probably a week in and he comes in, sits down, and starts immediately chirping me.”

“I think he connects with the players a lot since he was there and in their spot before,” Gray added. “So I think that is where he is very successful in what he does.”

Johnson owes a lot of his light-hearted attitude to former Blades head coach Dave Struch, who was an assistant when Johnson played for them.

“He was definitely the first one to joke around with you so I think that atmosphere that he created in the dressing room and the feeling that it left me is kind of what I like to leave in the dressing room as well,” he said. “He was kind of the guy that you looked up to but also you didn’t want to let down at all.”

It’s not always fun and games with Johnson, however.

He knows when to get serious, which is the hallmark of a good coach.

“He’s very sarcastic and he’s very witty [but] he’s a very intelligent hockey guy,” Bedford said. “As an assistant he’s perfect because he doesn’t tell you what he thinks, he only tells you what he thinks when you ask him.”

“He’s probably 90 per cent sarcasm and 10 per cent actual seriousness but the 10 per cent serious is usually yelling and actually pissed off,” North Stars defenceman Connor Sych added, who was already playing for the North Stars when Johnson was hired mid-season in 2014. “The 10 per cent definitely makes up for the 90 per cent…and game time he’s usually dialled in.”

Struch is not the only coach that Johnson credits for his development as a player and as a person. He is grateful to the entire Blades organization, which he played a total of 62 games for between 2009 and 2011.

“I can’t say enough good things about their organization in the way they treat their players and the way they’re able to turn boys into men,” Johnson said. “It’s a good stepping stone, not only in hockey, but also in life.”

Other hockey coaches, including Bedford, continue to shape him as well.

“Each year you kind of take little things from them, [so] Blair Atchymum, Kevin Hasselberg and now Nate Bedford,” Johnson said. “Everyone you meet I think there’s a positive and a negative thing you can learn from them and that’s the way I approach things.”

So how did Johnson come on board as an associate coach in the first place?

It’s a story he remembers well.

After his final year of junior, Johnson went to school to pursue his other interest: policing.

It was November and he had just graduated with a criminal justice diploma, which was a two-year program he had finished in one year because he took summer school.

Not long after graduating, Johnson drove up to the Battlefords because it had been a while since he had seen a game due to school. He had also noticed that the North Stars previous assistant coach had left the team.

“Kevin [Hasselberg] was on the bench by himself that night and I sat beside his wife Leah Hasselberg and we just talked a little bit,” Johnson recalled. “After the game I caught up with Kevin and we struck up a conversation about the possibility [of coaching]. I didn’t have much going on so from there, he gave me an opportunity to come work with the North Stars.

“I’m forever grateful for that situation and working alongside Kevin was something special to see. His work ethic and obviously his care for players and the community is [part of] the culture that is created here and the culture I’ll forever embrace.”

As for that interest in policing, it continues even though his primary role is as a hockey coach.

A lot of his spare time is spent reading, which he said is ironic.

“If anyone knew me in school, I definitely passed on any reading or anything like that,” he said. “My interest is crime stories or policing, interrogations, things like that. I have a strong interest in the mind.

“Just understanding how people think and why people do things is extremely important in my opinion.”

Nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

@NathanKanter11

by Nathan Kanter

Johnson blends wit with knowledge behind North Stars bench

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