Graduation: Brandon Whynott
When asked about his early hockey memories, Brandon Whynott recalls one that sticks out.
“I remember my first skating lesson I did I fell right on my bum and my dad was yelling at me to get up,” he said. “I was able to get up and then I went and scored a goal, and I was really pumped up. My dad was a big influence on me becoming a hockey player.”
Whynott’s dad coached the Junior ‘B’ Ridge Meadow Flames and Brandon says he would often go to games and into the locker room to talk to the players.
Not only did he attend those junior games, but he also saw the Vancouver Giants play regularly. Having now gone through the WHL experience as a player himself, he looks back on the days of when he was the young kid in the stands looking for high fives.
“I would always look forward to going to those games,” he said. “You look back and kind of understand what it’s like when you’re playing, because you were once that kid who was looking for a fist bump or a puck.”
When Whynott was around 13 years old he started to believe that he might be able to play in the WHL like the players he idolized.
“I remember getting called up to the Bantam A1 team and it was a lot of fun getting a chance to play with the older kids,” he said. “The coach was Jordan Emmerson and he was a great coach. He helped me out a ton when I moved up to the hitting level.”
For his WHL draft season, Whynott moved to the CSSHL and attended Yale Hockey Academy in Abbotsford, not far from his home in Langley.
He said the opportunity to play with a lot of his childhood friends was a big factor in his decision to go.
“I knew the coach going in there, and a few of my friends that I played spring hockey with were going there,” he said. “I thought going there and playing a few more years with my friends would be a lot of fun before you move to the junior level where you don’t get to choose who you play with.”
The move worked out just fine for Whynott as he picked up 32 points (17-15-32) in 30 games, and helped the Yale U15 team win the CSSHL U15 Division championship.
That team featured plenty of players who went on to play in the WHL, including Brayden Schuurman, Grayden Siepmann, Zach Benson and Ben Feenan, just to name a few.
Being on a championship team certainly helped his draft stock, culminating in the Calgary Hitmen selecting him with the 35th overall pick in the 2019 WHL Prospects Draft.
“I wasn’t entirely sure what was going to happen,” he said. “But it didn’t really matter to me. I just knew wherever I ended up going meant I had to work hard to make that team. Calgary gave me a call and that was obviously really cool. I enjoyed my three years there.”
The Hitmen also drafted Whynott’s teammate Grayden Siepmann in the first round and he recalls going to a restaurant in Calgary and signing with the Hitmen at the same time as Siepmann.
The first WHL training camp is always an eye-opening experience for the 15-year-olds, and it was no different for Whynott when he went to Calgary’s camp in the fall of 2019.
“I remember during the final game of training camp I thought I had a breakaway,” he laughed. “Then all the sudden Yegor Zamula, who was skating at half-speed, came in and took the puck away from me with ease and went the other way. It was pretty cool to get out there with guys who had been drafted by NHL teams and see how much work they put in every single day.”
Zamula has spent the last five seasons in the Philadelphia Flyers organization, appearing in 155 NHL games over that span.
After a successful 2019-20 season at the U18 level with Yale’s Prep Team, Whynott had to wait a little longer to make his WHL debut with the shortened 2020-21 season not starting until March.
Living in a hotel for two months wasn’t quite what Whynott had envisioned when he imagined his first taste of WHL action.
“It was definitely very weird,” he said. “It was like you’re playing a higher league, but it felt like a minor hockey game because there was nobody in the building.”
With 20 games and five points under his belt, Whynott returned to Calgary for a more normal WHL experience in 2021-22. Despite being a 17-year-old during that season, it was the first time Whynott had ever played in front of large crowds due to there being no fans allowed into buildings during the shortened season.
“It took a bit of an adjustment to playing in front of so many people,” he admitted. “It was honestly a bit odd playing in front of that many fans at first, but you adjust to it over time and learn to tune it out as best you can.”
Whynott spent the first three seasons of his WHL career with the Hitmen, suiting up for 141 games, before being traded to the Americans before the 2023-24 season.
He said the move wasn’t unexpected.
“At the end of the 2022-23 season they informed me that there was a good chance they were going to be trading me,” he said. “I didn’t argue about it. Then it was early one morning that they called me and told me I had been traded to Tri-City.”
Whynott said he was sad to be moving on from all the friends he had made in Calgary but received a warm welcome from the Americans including head coach Stu Barnes and defenseman Alex Serraglio, someone he had known for a long time.
The opportunity to play much closer to home was also an exciting thought.
“Whenever my parents wanted to come watch a home game they were able to just jump in the car and come down that day,” he said. “Playing in Langley was always really cool too. It seemed like there was always an entire section full of my family and friends, which was really cool.”
On the ice the transition couldn’t have gone much smoother. Just 16 games into the 2023-24 season Whynott had already set a new career high in goals, eventually finishing with 16 on the year. That was more than he scored in his first three seasons with Calgary combined.
He credits Americans associate coach TJ Millar for his offensive outburst.
“When I got there, TJ was very invested in my shooting and always challenged me to get a certain number of shots every game,” he said. “In practice he would always help me with certain kinds of shooting drills. The Americans gave me a chance to show what I could do and I think they did a great job in helping me develop my game.”
While Whynott enjoyed a career year with 33 points (16-17-33), the Americans struggled to a 23-42-2-1 record and missed the playoffs.
He says trying to remain positive became a key part of working through a challenging season.
“You just try to make sure everyone is in the right headspace,” he said. “All it takes it one win and you can get on a little bit of a roll. I thought our leadership group did a great job of making sure everyone was staying positive. I thought we had a great group of guys but unfortunately, we just didn’t get the results we wanted.”
Making some trades to bolster the roster for the 2024-25 season, the Americans looked to turn the page and get back on track.
Whynott played a major role in that himself, shattering his previous career highs across the board with 60 points (24-36-60).
His play early on helped the Americans fly out of the gates as they started the season with an 18-5-1-0 record, punctuated by a 12-game winning streak.
“I’ve never been on a team that’s won that many games in a row,” he said. “That was pretty special. I thought our team did a great job of not getting too high on ourselves and just playing the right way. It’s a lot of fun to come to the rink when you’re winning a lot of games.”
On January 10 it was announced that Whynott had committed to play NCAA Division 1 hockey at Bowling Green University for the 2025-26 season.
The new rule change allowed CHL players to play in the NCAA, which greatly benefitted Whynott as he ages out of the WHL at the perfect time.
“It will be great to get a few more years of highly competitive hockey,” he said. “I decided on Bowling Green because they have great facilities and obviously a great coach in Dennis Williams. Jake Sloan going there too is awesome and we’ll both get to experience it together which will be a lot of fun.”
While Tri-City didn’t maintain their torrid pace for the entirety of the 2024-25 season, they returned to the playoffs after a one-year hiatus to face the Victoria Royals.
A tough first-round matchup saw the Americans fall in five games.
“It always sucks when the season comes to an end,” Whynott said. “I thought our team in the playoffs rallied together and gave it everything we had.”
It was also a moment for Whynott to soak in the Toyota Center crowd one final time.
“I thought the fans in Tri-City were noticeably different than what you see in other cities,” he said. “They’re always loud and you can always tell they were into the games with their cowbells. It always gives you a bit of an adrenaline boost when you step out onto the ice in front of them.”
Whynott may be moving on to the next stage of his career, but he knows the Americans are in good hands.
“I think the future looks incredibly bright,” he said. “There are some younger guys on that team who are going to grow into being top players. Tri-City was a special place to end my junior career.”
