Memorial Cup champion King charging into first appearance at Calgary Stampede’s Rangeland Derby

Whether it’s a rink, a court, or a track, every young athlete dreams of what it would be like to compete at the highest level of their sport.

For WHL alumnus D.J. King, it’s a mountain he’s climbed twice.

Growing up in Meadow Lake, Sask., winters were dedicated to hockey until the sun melted away the ice to give way to time spent with horses and chuckwagons under the watchful eyes of his father and uncle.

He’s gone from a minor hockey player to Memorial Cup champion and NHLer, and now, he’s helming a team at the most famous chuckwagon races in the world at the Calgary Stampede.

“To finally be here underneath the big lights here at the Calgary Stampede, it’s an eye opener, for sure,” King said. “I’ve experienced it with friends and all that kind of stuff before, but it’s a whole different ball game when you’re behind the wagon and you’re running a team here at the Stampede.”

While he’s a decorated veteran on the Canadian Professional Chuckwagon Association (CPCA) and World Professional Chuckwagon Association (WPCA) circuits, 2025 marks King’s rookie run at the famed Rangeland Derby.

The 41-year-old won his heat on Wednesday night, finishing 14th on the day, and is currently ranked 22nd out of 44 drivers in the WPCA standings.

“The dedication, the sacrifices and just the mental preparation you take away from the game of hockey over to the chuckwagons,” King added. “Your athletes are your horses, your barn crew, and all that will be your coaching staff. I’d like to think of myself more as the GM. You’re obviously the driver, but it takes a crew, a family, to continue down the road. And these athletes, the horses, are just like a team of hockey players, right? You’ve got to treat, you’ve got to manage them right and take care of them.”

King is also the lone first-year driver at the Stampede, making him a lock for the Orville Sundquist Memorial Award for top rookie at the event.

His long resume includes 2015 CPCA Top Rookie honours, back-to-back CPCA Safe Driver Awards and CPCA Family of the Year.

But he also has one foot still firmly planted in the hockey world as a coach with his brother, fellow former pro and WHL alum Dwight King, through their DKSkills Hockey Development Program, which runs clinics across Western Canada.

D.J. plied his hockey skills for four seasons in the WHL in the early 2000s, largely with the Lethbridge Hurricanes.

The 6-foot, 185-pound centreman was drafted by the St. Louis Blues in the sixth round of the 2002 NHL Draft after a 24-point (10G-14A) rookie campaign.

His final season of eligibility saw King head west in a trade to join the powerhouse Kelowna Rockets for the remainder of the 2003-04 season, which saw the Rockets clinch a second consecutive Scotty Munro Trophy as WHL regular season champions.

King bagged a goal and six assists in the postseason, highlighted by an overtime winner against Tri-City in Game 4 of their second-round series, though the Rockets would bow out after a Game 7 heartbreaker against the brand-new Everett Silvertips in the Western Conference Championship.

Still, Kelowna had another shot to stand among CHL greats as hosts of the 2004 Memorial Cup.

The Rockets swept round-robin play thanks to their gritty defensive style, anchored by future NHL great Shea Weber, and edged the QMJHL Champion Gatineau Olympiques 2-1 in front of a sellout crowd at Prospera Place in the title match on May 23, 2004.

King would graduate from the league as a champion and move on to a nearly decade-long professional career, highlighted by six seasons in the NHL with the Blues and Washington Capitals before returning home to Saskatchewan to share his love of the game with the next generation.

He’s even worked with another Meadow Lake product in 6-foot-4, 230-pound forward Dawson Gerwing, who is also set to compete at the Memorial Cup with the host Kelowna Rockets in 2026.

As King continues his memorable first experience at the Stampede, he’s most proud to see the circle continuing with his sons, Jacob and Drew.

“Hockey has been part of my life for so long, and now it just transitioned over to the chuckwagon world,” King said. “But hockey is obviously going to still be part of my life, because with a 10-year-old and nine-year-old now, I’m chasing them around in the rinks. So we’re still in a lot of rinks in the winter, and then we chase the horse tracks in the summer. We can’t be any happier with our life right now. We’re making a lot of memories, and life’s good.”