Gavin enjoys WHL stop in Brandon

When Jordan Gavin came to Brandon in January of 2025, it was a big move for the British Columbia product.

The forward from Surrey was acquired by the Wheat Kings with defenceman Merrek Arpin from the Tri-City Americans at the 2024-25 trade deadline for defenceman Charlie Elick and a third-round pick in 2026.

As it turned out, the trade to a Western Hockey League city even farther from home worked out nicely.

“It was definitely a good move,” Gavin said. “I got really close with a lot of guys on Brandon and had some really good times here. It’s disappointing to go out in the first round this year and last year, but I think just building new connections and continuing to grow my game and meeting new people, I made some great memories here.”

The 19-year-old forward, whose club was recently swept out of the playoffs by the Calgary Hitmen in the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, won’t be returning for an overage season after he accepted an offer to play college hockey at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) next winter.

That’s had him thinking a lot about Brandon.

“I’m definitely not going to miss the weather,” Gavin said with a chuckle. “I’ll miss coming to the rink every day. Everything is really close here, and it’s easy to hang out with the guys and find food spots. I think it’s the overall city. I have good memories here, and there are a lot of passionate fans. I’ll miss that.”

Gavin was taken one pick ahead of Elick in the 2021 draft, second overall, and they were teammates on Canada’s entry in the 2023 Hlinka Gretzky Cup with the fourth pick, former Wheat Kings forward Roger McQueen.

That was the year the draft moved from May to December to give scouts a more complete look at players after much of the 2020-21 season was wiped out by the pandemic.

“That was a big day and it was fun for me and my family to be able to get drafted into the WHL and end up playing a few games that year,” Gavin said of the draft. “It made my decision to come over to the WHL, and I think it was the right decision. Obviously that day was really exciting for me.”

YOUNG AMERICAN

Gavin suited up with the Americans for nine games that season after they selected him, potting his first WHL goal in his sixth game on April 1, 2022. That made him the youngest player in Americans franchise history to score.

In his 16-year-old campaign in 2022-23, he finished sixth among WHL rookies with 54 points on 22 goals and 32 assists in 62 games.

Gavin became close friends with Lukas Dragicevic, Alex Serraglio, Ethan Peters and Parker Bell, saying they helped him feel more at home in the league. He said their influence enabled him to be a good leader in future years.

“When I was 16, I was a lot harder with a lot of older guys and not as many young guys,” Gavin said. “I think it was being more comfortable and growing more into a leadership role and being able to be role models for the younger guys, like I had when I was 16. It’s definitely a good thing to have someone you can talk to when you’re younger, so I tried to be one of those guys and lead by example.

“I’ve grown a lot as a person in terms of maturity and being able to lead.”

In his 17-year-old campaign, Gavin contributed 23 goals, 45 assists and 68 points in 68 games.

In addition, he was the U.S. Division’s nominee for the Brad Hornung Memorial Trophy as the most sportsmanlike player for the 2023-24 season after setting a league record when he became the first player to record a point-per-game season with zero penalty minutes. He lost out to a two-time winner, Moose Jaw Warriors forward Brayden Yager, who went on to earn the Canadian Hockey League award.

After he took no penalty minutes in 68 games split between Brandon and Tri-City in 2024-25 — he had 21 goals and 36 assists — he was nominated a second time, this time losing out to Berkly Catton.

(After taking six penalty minutes this season, he has been nominated a third time. No WHL winner has been announced yet.)

“I think I made some strides in terms of my well-rounded game,” Gavin said. “I played a lot of penalty kill this year. I wanted to see a little bit more from a production standpoint, but I’m happy with how the details of my game have grown. I played big, heavy minutes this year, so it’s good to get that experience as well.”

After moving away at age 16 from his family — father Kevin, mother Cindy and his three younger sisters, Jayla, Kaycee and Kensie — he lived with his linemate Jake Sloan in the home of Tracy and Mike Wilson in Kennewick, Wash.

“They were awesome,” Gavin said. “It’s hard to send your kid away at 14 or 15 but they made it so easy on me. They were super open, and obviously with the help of Jake Sloan, they helped me ease into the league. They’re amazing people who provided me meals every day and everything I could ask for in a billet family. They were awesome to me.”

If the name of this particular billet family in Kennewick, Wash., sounds strangely familiar, it might be. They also hosted Landon Roberts of Souris, who Brandon acquired on Oct. 31, 2021. Needless to say, there were some chuckles when a second billet son headed to the Wheat City.

“It was the first thing we talked about,” Gavin said. “We sat down after I got traded. They had Landon Roberts there so they told me to reach out to him if I needed anything. It was definitely funny to have two guys go to Brandon in a span of four years.”

Overall in his WHL career, Gavin played 290 regular season and playoff games over parts of five seasons, with 83 goals, 262 assists and 12 penalty minutes.

You can probably subtract two of those penalty minutes because they were serving a too many men penalty, which is a bench minor, with the others coming for tripping, slashing, delay of game, interference and hooking.

Aside from that litany of thuggery, which honestly would have been a productive period for a bruising winger in 1975, Gavin said his game improved in a lot of ways.

“Over the years it was building my strength and my speed,” Gavin said. “I think I’ve developed into a pretty good two-way player and rounded out my game that way. As a young guy, it’s harder playing against bigger, stronger players, but as I grow older, I feel like I’m one of those guys that maybe when I was 16, the differences in sizes and stuff, so it was being able to grow my two-way game.

“I think I’m a more well-rounded player now than when I was 16.”

This year, the five-foot-11, 180-pound left-shooting forward had 16 goals and 42 assists in 68 games for a career-high 58 points and also posted a career-high plus-minus of 7.

NEXT MOVE

The other thing on his mind this year was going to school after the NCAA changed its rules in November 2024 to allow access to major junior players.

“It’s definitely helped me out in a very positive way,” Gavin said. “It built me a longer runway to get to go where I want to go. My goal is to play professional hockey, and this option opened up more doors for me in terms of playing pro and being able to develop and ultimately get bigger and stronger.

“It allows me to work on my game more and build on becoming a pro.”

He spoke to a lot of schools, with just a few emerging as serious contenders. He committed to RPI after Christmas, joining two other Wheat Kings, Grayson Burzynski and Caleb Hadland.

“It’s going to be awesome,” Gavin said. “We’re going to end up living together. I got really close with them this year and it’s definitely going to be really good to have them around and build the program up with them.”

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is located in Troy, N.Y., just north of the state capital Albany, and about 250 kilometres north of New York City. RPI was founded in 1824, 43 years before Canadian Confederation, and is the oldest technological university in the United States.

The Engineers hockey team is one of 12 Division I programs that play in ECAC Hockey, including the six Ivy League schools. That means the Wheat Kings trio will be playing next season against Brandon defenceman Max Lavoie, who is headed to Princeton University.

RPI, which was ninth last season with a conference record of 8-13-1, hasn’t won a title since 1984-85 in a league dominated by six-time champion Quinnipiac.

“It was a tough decision, but my conversations with the coach at RPI, he was really great,” Gavin said. “He came out to see me and a couple of our guys on our team. I really liked the way he approached me and how he approaches his team and development and the plan going forward.

“I have a lot of faith in that, and I think that’s huge. The biggest thing I was looking for was a coach who believed in me and someone who wants to help me become a pro. I felt like he was the best for that and ultimately I chose RPI.”

SAYING GOODBYE

While that gave him a plan for the 2026-27 season, he still had lots of hockey left in Brandon after he committed. He also knew the last half of the season would be his farewell tour and there were moments of nostalgia.

“For some rinks, for sure,” said Gavin, who turns 20 in November. “Playing in the WHL is special. There are a lot of historic rinks in the league, so it was just being able to take a last look at a few of these rinks. It hasn’t really sunk in. It wasn’t top of my mind for a lot of the season, but definitely looking back at it, it’s pretty sad not to be able to play in those rinks again.”

It also meant he had a lot of goodbyes after the season ended.

Rick and Amber Woychyshyn and their children Alyssa and Mason took in Gavin and Arpin when they got traded to Brandon, and while Arpin didn’t play this season after getting hurt in the pre-season, Gavin stayed. (Mason played his 16-year-old season at the South Alberta Hockey Academy in Medicine Hat.)

“I couldn’t ask for a better family to host me,” Gavin said. “They were super easy with me and again provided me with meals every day. I ended up getting closer and closer to them throughout the year.

“It sucks I won’t be coming back. They were an awesome host family, and I definitely appreciate everything they did for me.”

Gavin was also appreciative of the coaching staff, head coach and general manager Marty Murray, assistants Mark (Billy) Derlago and Del Pedrick, along with athletic therapist Zach Hartwick and equipment manager Jake McKercher.

“When (Murray) traded for me, he really emphasized how he believed in me and what kind of player I could become,” Gavin said. “He was great when I first got here and helped me grow my game throughout the season. All the coaching staff, Del and Billy and the trainers, Zach and Jake, they’re all amazing.

“It was a really easy staff to deal with and I’m definitely going to miss having them around and being able to reach out to them. The whole staff was great.”

While his WHL career has just ended and it will be a few months before he embarks on the next chapter, Gavin has no doubt what his long-term memories will be. Not surprisingly, most of them aren’t on the ice.

“It was definitely just hanging out with the guys, and the bus trips and meeting new people,” Gavin said. “There are so many experiences I had and so many memories I made being in the WHL. When you have a group of guys with the same goal, it was just a really amazing time to hang out.

“It was definitely the best four years of my life.”

pbergson@brandonsun.com