Rookie makes Landmark case to stay

Even with a changing hockey landscape in recent years, the odds of beginning a Western Hockey League career at 19 are rare.

However, Hudson Landmark is proving it’s not impossible as he embarks on his rookie campaign with the Brandon Wheat Kings. When he came to Brandon for camp in August, he was eager to give it one last try.

“I know I’ve been putting the work in every day since I hit the junior level and I know it’s hard to stay focused, but I just kept going,” Landmark said. “I want to stick around here and keep it alive.”

Landmark and the Wheat Kings were in action last night against the Vancouver Giants in a game that ended well after deadline.

The six-foot-two, 191-pound Landmark lived his whole life in Sherwood Park, a bedroom community east of Edmonton.

He began to skate around age five and began to play soon after, always as a forward. He was also active in baseball, lacrosse, golf and many other sports.

“I loved every sport,” Landmark said. His sports-oriented family includes father Blake and mother Jill, and older and younger sisters, who are both big into volleyball.

One uncle played in the WHL briefly, while a couple of distant relatives played games in the National Hockey League.

Since the right-shooting Landmark grew up in a WHL market, he’s had a relationship with the league since he was young.

“Living right beside Edmonton, my family would go to Oil Kings games all the time,” he said. “We loved watching that hockey and I grew up always wanting to play in it.”

He got that chance.

After serving as a point-per-game captain of his U15 AAA Sherwood Park Flyers squad in 2021-22, the Winnipeg Ice selected him in the eighth round of the 2022 WHL draft.

“That was a big day,” Landmark said. “A lot of nerves, and to hear my name get called in that was quite an experience.”

Landmark went to one camp with Winnipeg, and on Jan. 8, 2023, was one of four players and four picks traded to the Vancouver Giants by the spendthrift Ice for San Jose Sharks forward Zack Ostapchuk.

He went to one camp in Vancouver and was later dropped and picked up by the Everett Silvertips and dropped again.

In his 16-year-old season in 2023-24, he had 38 points in 38 games with the U18 AAA Sherwood Park Kings, and also had a pair of points in 10 games with the Alberta Junior Hockey League’s Sherwood Park Crusaders.

A season later, Landmark landed with the AJHL’s Canmore Eagles, and had 15 points in 34 games split between the Crusaders and Eagles.

“I’d say I’m a good 200-foot player,” Landmark said of his game. “I can use my size well, good speed, but my offence and defence and playing on both sides of the ice is really my bread and butter.”

Last season proved to be an eventful one. He was named to Canada West’s roster for the 2025 Junior A World Challenge from Dec. 7 to 13 in Trois-Rivieres, Que., where his club took silver.

A great season in which he had 39 points in 39 games got even better when Canmore won its first AJHL championship, and he had two goals and three assists in five games at the Centennial Cup.

Brandon was watching, and added him to its 50-man list early last season.

He impressed at Brandon’s training camp in August, and scored in a pre-season overtime as part of the WHL’s pilot project that forbade the offensive team from circling back over the blue-line after they carried the puck into the other team’s zone.

His pre-season was cut short, however, on a borderline late hit by Moose Jaw Warriors forward Kash Andresen that knocked him out of the lineup.

“I don’t really remember that too much,” Landmark said. “I was really disappointed. I wanted to keep playing, I felt like I was doing good and making movement forwards. It sucks, but it’s part of the game and I just have to move on from it, but it was a bummer.”

The Wheat Kings kept him around while he healed, and he has since skated in three of their five games and been a regular on the penalty kill. Brandon head coach and general manager Marty Murray said Landmark earned that consideration.

“I thought Hudson had a real strong camp and pre-season,” Murray said. “Unfortunately he suffered that injury but I thought (against the Regina Pats and Moose Jaw on Sept. 25 and 26) he gave us what we needed. He provided some energy, he did a good job killing penalties and I thought (against Moose Jaw) their line played a lot in the offensive zone.

“He’s a guy that even though he’s a first-year player in the league, is 19 and we need to see that veteran experience night in and night out.”

Brandon struck gold with 19-year-old rookie defenceman Max Lavoie a year ago — he has since moved on to Princeton University — and hope lightning strikes in successive seasons.

Even so, there is a transition period between Junior A and major junior. Landmark sees it in all the little things that are done right.

“The big difference is consistent plays,” Landmark said. “Everyone here is making consistent tape-to-tape passes and the speed is quite a bit faster. That was a big adjustment.”

He is hoping to play college hockey one day but isn’t committed anywhere yet. Instead his focus is on making his mark as that rarest of commodities, a 19-year-old rookie.

“I hope our team can come out and win a championship and I’d like to be a big part of it,” Landmark said.

» pbergson@brandonsun.com