WHERE ARE THEY NOW — Teamwork is hockey’s legacy for Aitken

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This article was published 29/11/2018 (1966 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Johnathan Aitken said the most enduring lesson of his years in hockey is simply being a good teammate.

Now 40, he played with the Brandon Wheat Kings for two seasons from 1996 to 1998 after a trade with the Medicine Hat Tigers. He said the things he misses and absorbed from the game aren’t unique.

“One of the things you miss first and foremost — a lot of guys would say it — is the camaraderie that you have within a team and when you’re on the ice,” Aitken said. “The hard work and communication that you have on a team definitely helps with things after hockey. No matter what job you do, it’s working hard and having that communication with your colleagues that you work with. That alone puts you in good standing with any company or job you work at.”

Aitken grew up in Sherwood Park, Alta., just west of Edmonton, and started skating at age two or three. One of his friend’s houses backed onto a small lake, and they would skate there every day after school.

“That was pretty much from elementary (school) on,” Aitken said. “There were a lot of ways to get on the ice at that age, but at that time it was mostly outdoor rinks.”

He started playing organized hockey around age five. His Scottish-born parents James and Lorna made it all happen, while his sister Lindzie did synchronized swimming.

“I don’t think we really realize it until later in life,” Aitken said. “Being young, you just expect it, and don’t notice the extra work your dad does in order for us to live in Sherwood Park or Canada, and live a good life. He sacrificed his time in order for myself to play hockey, and always getting the good equipment, no hand-me-downs, and getting up for early morning practices on the weekends after he came down from Fort McMurray or something like that and arriving early in the morning.

“He would get home at 1 or 2 and get up at 5 or 6 to take me to an early morning practice. You don’t really realize how much parents do for their kids when you’re growing up.”

His father would sometimes take the day off and rent early ice at Sherwood Park Arena on Friday mornings to put Aitken through his paces with AC/DC blasting in the background. When his father couldn’t make it, his diminutive mother would attend in her figure skates.

Aitken, who now stands six-foot-four, was always one of the taller kids at his age, and never went through any pronounced growth spurts.

He began to realize in peewee AA that he was being noticed by guys taking notes in the stands. It would be a familiar sight for him in the next few years, although he doesn’t remember ever discussing it with his teammates.

In the 1993 Western Hockey League draft, he was selected 12th overall by the Medicine Hat Tigers. In that pre-Internet era, he received a phone call from Tigers general manager Dennis Polonich to tell him the news.

“I just remember my dad being extremely happy,” Aitken said. “He was emotional about it and extremely proud.”

Aitken would play one last season in Sherwood Park — AAA midget with the Kings — and head to Medicine Hat as a 16-year-old for the 1994-95 season.

He embraced the new adventure.

“At 16 you’re moving away from home and you get a car and it was all new,” Aitken said. “I was excited. I was not homesick …I had a great billet family and my roommate was Blair St. Martin and he was a year older than me. Great guy. He was very smart in school, so he was like my tutor if I needed help.”

(St. Martin is now a urological surgeon.)

Aitken had broken his ankle in gym class in the spring, and it had just healed up when he went to his first camp. In Kindersley, Sask., he broke his other ankle and missed the start of his rookie season.

To get extra time on the ice for his recovery, he attended public skating sessions on his own.

Aitken played 53 games that season, posting five assists and earning 71 penalty minutes.

His breakout year arrived in 1995-96. In 71 games, the big defenceman recorded six goals, add 14 assists and earned 131 penalty minutes. He credits what he learned in his first year.

“You took a lot of notice of how guys worked,” Aitken said. “It is a structured lifestyle, even though you think you’re playing hockey and it’s fun. You’re doing what you should be doing, you’re hanging out with the guys, you’re going to the gym, you’re doing your extra stuff.”

Aitken went with his parents and an assortment of family members to the 1996 National Hockey League draft in St. Louis. On June 22, 1996, his name was called, although he admits he was chatting with one of his cousins and missed it.

“We were just talking away and then all of a sudden my dad stood up and ‘Yaaay!’ People are clapping and I’m thinking ‘I guess that’s me,’” Aitken said. “It really kind of sunk in afterwards. I remember shaking Gary Bettman’s hand and he said ‘Welcome to the NHL.’ It was pretty surreal, a big blur.”

He would soon have a new experience in the WHL as well. After playing under three head coaches in two seasons in Medicine Hat, Aitken chose not to report to the Tigers as an 18-year-old for the 1996-97 campaign.

He was a highly sought after prize that fall, and while Aitken thought he was going to end up with the team Brandon had just beaten in the 1996 WHL final, the Spokane Chiefs, Wheat Kings general manager Kelly McCrimmon made the deal.

On Oct. 1, 1996, he was acquired for a pair of Brandonites, 17-year-old defenceman Derek Holland and 18-year-old forward Jeff Temple.

Aitken said in his first two seasons as a Tiger, he always considered the Wheat Kings to be a big skilled team that reflected the intensity of head coach Bob Lowes. He sought what the fiery coach offered.

“I liked to have that intensity,” Aitken said. “I guess that’s why I was drawn to Lowesy. I think a lot of us were on those teams. We respected Lowesy. Maybe he was a hard-ass and he screamed here and there but he never sugar-coated anything and I guess the team played exactly the way he was, hard working and in your face. You didn’t take any nonsense and you stuck up for each other.”

The big defender was outstanding, posting four goals and 18 assists in 65 games while piling up 211 penalty minutes and a plus-minus of plus-16 in his first year as a Wheat King.

On a veteran team that won 47 games and finished first in the East Division, Aitken felt the need to fit in, especially after two popular teammates had been traded for him.

“I was a little bit uneasy because there were guys who had been traded away for me and they were good friends with (other Wheat King players),” Aitken said, noting he became friends with Temple after he was dealt back to Brandon a year later. “I had to win some of the guys over, and at the end of the day we all became a pretty good team, very close knit and friends away from the rink.”

Aitken was part of one of the deepest Brandon blue-lines in recent memory, joining Dan Tetrault, Justin Kurtz, Andrei Lupandin, Burke Henry, Gerhard Unterluggauer and Les Borsheim.

“We all knew what we brought to the table and did what we could to help the team win,” Aitken said. “I think that’s the difference between a good team and a great team, when nobody cares who gets the credit.”

A season of high hopes ended prematurely in the first round of the 1996-97 playoffs, however, mostly due to the work of overage Moose Jaw Warriors netminder Donovan Nunweiler. He stopped 92 of 97 shots in a pair of Warrior victories to start the series, and was brilliant in a pair of overtime victories to end the series.

Brandon would rebound in Aitken’s 19-year-old season, reaching the league final for the third time in four seasons. In 69 games, Aitken contributed nine goals, 25 assists, 183 penalty minutes and a plus-minus of plus-25.

He would add eight assists and take 67 penalty minutes in 18 playoff games, culminating in a four-game sweep at the hands of the Portland Winterhawks in the final.

Aitken felt his game progressed in his two seasons in Brandon as he became older and more physically dominant. But that was only part of the story.

“Everything just came together that whole year,” Aitken said. “I got put into situations where Lowesy and Johnny (assistant coach Mark Johnston) are putting the game in your hands as a team. We got better and I got better personally. I enjoyed my time thoroughly in Medicine Hat my first two years, but it would have been nice to have been in that situation for my full 16-, 17-, 18- and 19-year-old years in Brandon. They were two organizations going in two different directions at that time.”

Aitken graduated to the American Hockey League’s Providence Bruins for his overage season, playing 65 games in the 1998-99 season and winning the Calder Cup. He would play 70 more in the 1999-2000, but it was a game on April 5, 2000 that would be the one to remember.

The Boston Bruins called him up, and he would meet them on the road to play the Florida Panthers that evening.

“It was a whirlwind really,” Aitken said. “Me and (Providence teammate) Peter Ferraro ended up going on the flight down to Florida. You’re at the rink, you get to the airport, you get a cab and get to the rink earlier than most people and you’re just trying to soak everything in and trying not to get too excited or feel too overwhelmed.

“You tend to forget that it’s just hockey, but obviously it’s a bit more pressure with your first callup. You want to make a good impression because you don’t want to go back down.”

He played 20 minutes 39 seconds that night, and then play at least 17 minutes per night in the team’s next two games.

But with the season ending, everything would start anew for him yet again.

After a coaching change in Providence at the start of the last season and a personality conflict that saw Aitken actually moved up to forward on the team’s fourth line, Boston agreed to buy out the third year of his contract.

Aitken joined Sparta Praha of the Czech Extraliga for a season — with the team earning the league’s silver medal and participating in the Spengler Cup — before returning to North America.

“I went back to the drawing board essentially,” Aitken said.

He signed with the AHL’s Norfolk Admirals, which was the farm team for the Chicago Blackhawks.

He found an understanding and talented coach in Trent Yawney, and on a lunch bucket club that also included Burke Henry, Aitken found his way again. After two full seasons in the minors, Aitken returned to the NHL in the 2003-04 season with the Blackhawks for 41 games. He earned his only NHL point on Feb. 27, 2004 against the Columbus Blue Jackets on a goal by Kyle Calder.

But as a callup, regardless of how well he was playing, whenever somebody got healthy, Aitken would be sent back down to the AHL.

“That was the disappointing part when you’re playing well,” Aitken said. “I’m obviously loving the team and playing from game to game and being around some real quality guys and playing some of the best hockey of my career.”

Aitken would find himself with the Manitoba Moose the next season, and after two more years, including another season in Europe, Aitken called it quits following the 2006-07 campaign in Austria.

“I retired for the wrong reasons,” Aitken said. “I’ll leave it at that essentially because it was nothing to do with hockey, it was a lot of personal reasons. I gave up on myself essentially to make a long story short, and I shouldn’t have. I felt at the time that I could have played another good five years, regardless of whether it was in the American League or making another crack at getting back to the NHL or playing in Europe. I do have regrets.

“I’ve learned to live with it, don’t get me wrong, but I’m going to make sure that my kids, whether they’re playing a sport or with their education, that they don’t sell themselves short.”

Aitken, who gave little fist bumps or knuckles to his 23-month-old son Jack when he picked him up at daycare during the conversation, is married to Marie. Aitken is stepdad to Marie’s son Parker, who is nine.

He also has two kids from his previous marriage, Nia, 12, and Jett, 10, who live in Brandon.

Aitken said he had pondered life after hockey while he was still playing, but didn’t quit to do something. He works in project management in the oil fields, while also doing some coaching and working with Top Shelf Hockey Training —topshelfhockeytraining.com — a skills development company he started a couple of years ago.

It combines on-ice work with off-ice representation, providing what he calls “one-stop shopping.” Aitken also works with Kaizen Sports, a full-service agency running out of Penticton, B.C.

He still plays senior AAA hockey, although he misses the presence at games of his father, who passed away on Feb. 26, 2016.

There are certainly three other men he remains grateful for, McCrimmon, Lowes and Johnston. He respects each of them.

“They had a sense about them that they cared,” Aitken said. “They were just genuine people and wanted the best for everyone on the team. They didn’t sugarcoat things. They told you the way they told you in order to make you a better person and a better player.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com

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