Graduation: Ethan Peters
While Ethan Peters wasn’t literally born with a hockey stick in his hand, he may as well have been with how quickly he started playing the game.
“I think my dad put a hockey stick in my hand as soon as he could,” Peters said with a laugh. “I just loved it right away. I loved the competitiveness and I think that’s just something I’ve always had, which I probably got from my dad.”
Jason Peters had a four-year junior hockey career of his own, including a brief three-game stint with the Tri-City Americans in the 1991-92 season.
His guidance has always led Ethan from day one.
“My earliest memories of hockey are probably from my dad teaching me how to skate and coaching me as a kid,” he said. “He coached me all the way up to U15 so those memories from when I was four, five and six really stick out in my head. He was probably the biggest influence in my whole career. He’s been around so long and knows so much about hockey that he was always teaching me every day and pushing me to get better.”
Growing up in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, home of the WHL’s Warriors, Peters also had their influence in shaping his love of the game.
“Those guys were superheroes when you’re growing up,” said Peters. “Those were guys that I definitely looked up to a lot when I was younger, and I wanted to be like them. You watch the games and then you see them in your school, it’s awesome for kids to have that. They’re such great role models and it makes you want to be like them.”
Peters says his aunt was also a billet for the Warriors giving him the opportunity to spend more time with the players, only increasing his desire to be like them.
One Halloween in particular comes to mind.
“I remember around Halloween when I was around seven years old and they were billeting Quinten Howden and Dylan McIlrath,” he said. “They came over to my house and surprised me. I got a picture with them and got it framed and I just thought it was the best gift ever. I hung up that photo in my room and I was just so proud of it.”
As he progressed through minor hockey and reached his WHL draft year, Peters and multiple other Moose Jaw kids decided to play the 2017-18 season 20 minutes down the highway in Caronport at the newly formed Prairie Hockey Academy.
While PHA is now a member of the Canadian Sport School Hockey League with teams at each age group, they weren’t a CSSHL-sanctioned team in that first season, forcing them to get creative with how they got their games in.
“We kind of took a leap of faith to say, ‘hey we’ll try out this academy for its first year’,” Peters explained. “We basically had to go around the country to find tournaments to play in. You’d go two or three weeks of just practice and then you’re playing five or six games in a single weekend. We had such a good group of guys and we pushed each other every day. I think there’s a lot of us that came out of there better than we were when we went in because we got an opportunity there that we wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Despite a solid season of 30 points (3-27-30) in the 40 games he played, Peters went undrafted in the 2018 WHL Prospects Draft. He says due to their unique situation that year, and the lack of scouts watching their games, he wasn’t overly surprised not to see his name called.
Not being drafted worked out just fine for Peters as the Edmonton Oil Kings invited him to training camp the following year, resulting in him being placed on their 50-man protected list.
Peters returned to the Prairie Hockey Academy for the 2018-19 season as they saw their U16 team admitted to the CSSHL, but he then returned home to Moose Jaw in the fall of 2019 because PHA didn’t have a U18 team in place for 2019-20.
After minor hockey across Canada was cut short in 2020-21, Peters found out he was going to be signed by the Oil Kings and join them whenever the WHL was able to get their season up and running.
Teams officially got the green light for games in late February, allowing Peters to join the Oil Kings for their short season. Going 20-2-1-0, it was clear how much talent the team had.
“We won so many games and we wished we could have had a playoffs that year because we didn’t want to wait,” he laughed. “You almost wanted those summer months to go by quicker because you were just waiting for the next season to start, knowing the kind of group we had.”
That team featured two players who had already been drafted into the NHL in Jake Neighbours and Matthew Robertson, and then saw three more get drafted in 2021 with Dylan Guenther (ninth overall), Sebastian Cossa (15th overall) and future Tri-City American Jalen Luypen going in the seventh round.
That season also gave Peters the opportunity to show his talent, which caught the eyes of the Toronto Maple Leafs who invited him to their rookie camp the following year.
“Getting that phone call from my agent telling me I was going to Toronto was unbelievable,” he said. “Just to get there and be around the facilities, the coaches, the players, it was a pretty special time. To be able to look back and say I went to an NHL camp is pretty special.”
The success of the shortened season carried over into the 2021-22 season as the Oil Kings finished with a 50-14-3-1 record, second only to the Winnipeg ICE at 53-10-3-2.
Already loaded with talent to begin the season, the Oil Kings went all in by acquiring players like Luke Prokop (Nashville 2020 third-round pick), Kaiden Guhle (Montreal 2020 first-round pick) and Justin Sourdif (Florida 2020 third-round pick). They also saw Jake Neighbours returned to the WHL after spending the first part of the season with the St. Louis Blues.
“It’s pretty surreal to be around guys like that as a bit of a younger guy in the league,” Peters said. “They were all so professional and the nicest guys ever. You just try to soak in all the habits they have and learn as much as you could from them because they’re such special players.”
While some games were closer than others, the Oil Kings continued their dominance in the 2022 WHL Playoffs, sweeping the Lethbridge Hurricanes and Red Deer Rebels to set up a conference final matchup with Winnipeg.
Two of the games were decided in overtime, but Edmonton once again made quick work of their opponent by advancing to the league championship in just five games.
“We had heard a lot of noise about other teams around the league that thought they could compete with us,” Peters said. “But we had a lot of belief within our room about what we were capable of. You never really know what will happen in the playoffs, but we had a lot a belief in ourselves, and I think that’s what led to our success.”
After dropping game one of the league final to the Seattle Thunderbirds, the Oil Kings rattled off three straight wins before eventually claiming the Ed Chynoweth Cup with a 2-0 win in game six.
Peters dressed in Edmonton’s first 14 playoff games before suffering an injury that forced him to miss the last five. As he ran out onto the ice of Rogers Place following the game six victory, his memory of the moment is clouded from the elation.
“You remember the main parts but you’re just so in the moment that it’s almost just a blur,” he said. “I remember running out onto the ice and being so happy. Grinding nine months for something and actually having it all come together, it’s just a special feeling.”
The Oil Kings advanced to the Memorial Cup, being hosted by the Saint John Seadogs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, but unfortunately couldn’t carry on their success from the WHL as they didn’t make it past the round robin.
While they didn’t achieve their goal of winning the Memorial Cup, Peters says it’s hard to look at that season as anything other than a success.
“The hard part of not winning is looking back on how special that team was, knowing we had the tools to win the Memorial Cup,” he said. “But being able to say that we won the WHL Championship, you have to be pretty lucky to be able to say that.”
Edmonton pushed all their chips into the middle for that season, making it evident that the following year would be a major step back. They went from 50 wins in 2021-22 to just 10 in 2022-23.
Everyone knew it was coming, but Peters says it’s an afterthought during a championship run.
“It’s the cycle of junior hockey,” Peters said. “You’re not really thinking about it the year you win, but then you come to camp the following year and you’re like ‘ok, this is obviously a different team’. I was transitioning into an older guy on the team at 19-years-old, so you just want to take on those big minutes and help the younger guys who are coming into the league.”
After trading away a multitude of draft picks and prospects to build their championship roster, the Oil Kings needed to recoup those assets by trading players away. Peters ended up being one of those players, though it wasn’t a total shock to him when it happened.
“I played with Loops (Jalen Luypen) in Edmonton for a few years before that and he was joking with me that he was trying to get me down to Tri-City,” he laughed. “I didn’t know much about the team before I got there, I had barely even been there other than when Edmonton was down at the start of the season.”
Peters quickly became accustomed to the passion that fans in the U.S. Division have for their teams.
“Playing at Rogers Place is cool but playing in a packed Toyota Center and around the U.S. Division is honestly just as cool to me,” he said. “The fans are crazy; they’re yelling and screaming every game. The rinks have so much energy every night, no matter who’s playing.”
As much as Peters enjoyed the on-ice aspect of being a Tri-City American, it was the work in the community that brought him the most pride.
Fifteen years earlier Peters looked up to the Moose Jaw Warriors as superheroes. Now he was the one playing that role.
“Being able to go out and meet so many people who maybe aren’t as familiar with hockey was pretty cool,” he said. “The team does so much in the community, and you get to meet so many people. There’s so much passion there, it’s a lot of fun to be a part of.”
After a first-round loss to the Prince George Cougars in 2023, the Americans had high hopes heading into the 2023-24 season to improve on a strong showing the year before.
Being a 20-year-old, Peters wanted to have as much of an impact in the locker room as he did on the ice.
“You want to be a leader on the team. You’re trying to be that guy who helps the younger players,” he said. “As a team we had higher expectations than what we showed this year. Unfortunately, it was just kind of one of those years. Everyone’s trying their hardest to win and so are you, but sometimes it doesn’t go your way. The first half was pretty good but the second half kind of fell off the tracks.”
Adding frustration to a difficult second half of the season, Peters went down with an injury in March.
The way he got injured only made it more frustrating.
“It was just a weird fall where I got tangled up with another guy and ended up breaking my collar bone,” he explained. “It was really devastating not to be able to finish your career the way you wanted to. You play so many games and you start to think about how you want to play those last few games in the league.”
Peters missed nine of the Americans last 10 games of the year, appearing only in the final home game of the season.
While he wasn’t healthy for the game, he said the Americans coaching staff wanted him to get a chance to skate one last time.
“I played the first shift of every period and tried not to get hit,” he laughed. “They knew I was hurt but they wanted to get me in for the last home game. Getting the chance to be on the ice for the faceoffs and be on the bench with the guys again was pretty special.”
A tradition in major junior hockey is to announce a team’s graduating 20-year-olds as the three stars in the final home game of the regular season.
It was a moment for Peters to reflect on his time in the WHL.
“It was pretty emotional for me, Serge and Bellsy,” he said. “The fans were so awesome for us ever since I got to Tri-City. They’re honestly the best fans in the WHL. I can’t thank them enough for all the support they gave us. I know there’s a lot of good returning players and young guys coming in, so there’s a lot to be excited about in the future. I just hope the fans keep bringing the energy because that makes it so fun to play for the Americans.”
With his junior hockey career now behind him Peters has his sights set on using his WHL Education Package. While he hasn’t decided on where he’s going, he says he plans on pursuing an engineering degree wherever he enrolls.