Ponte’s time in Brandon a life changer

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This article was published 15/03/2021 (1907 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Randy Ponte didn’t know a thing about the Western Hockey League before his bantam draft year in 1996.

That certainly changed.

Now 39 and a married father of three in his hometown of Langley, B.C., Ponte’s five years with the Brandon Wheat Kings from 1997 to 2002 flew by but made an indelible impression.

“It’s such a big part of me. It changed my life,” Ponte said. “My path in life was definitely changed by going there and playing for Brandon, that great organization. I look back at it now, and I know it went by so fast. 

“I think that’s one of the big things I tell these other guys now, when we talk about how quickly things are going and how time flies. I wish I maybe took it in a little bit more when I was there and really just respected how fast time flies. 

“I look back at it and it’s such a huge accomplishment for me.”

Ponte was born in Vancouver but raised southeast of the city in Langley after a move when he was two years old. 

His parents Armando and Ilda emigrated to Canada from Portugal in 1971, and had four boys. Based on the style he would later embrace in his hockey career, perhaps it’s not surprising Randy had three older brothers.

“That’s where I got my protective, defensive mode, always ready to go,” Ponte said with a chuckle. 

All three brothers also played minor hockey in Langley, which was obviously a handful for their parents. Ponte has grown to really appreciate their efforts, noting they wanted the boys doing something.

“They really had to give up a lot to have us play hockey and sacrificed quite a bit,” Ponte said. “Especially for myself, I was always on these summer teams and spring teams and always travelling. For them to be able to sacrifice to have me go do that was amazing.

“A lot of times it was tough to afford for all of us to go and sometimes my parents couldn’t go with me, so I would go with a friend on the team’s parents.”

Ponte said his father grew up a soccer fan but quickly became a Vancouver Canucks supporter after moving to Canada.

His first contact with the WHL came when Mark Johnston, who was an assistant coach with the Wheat Kings at the time but is now head scout, attended a tournament in Abbotsford. Johnston talked to Randy and Armando that day, so it wasn’t a complete surprise when he was taken by Brandon in the fourth round of the 1996 draft, 69th overall.

He was one of about a dozen players selected from his summer team, but even after the chat with Johnston, it was a bit of a shock to consider a move to a place that far from home when all of his friends went to nearby clubs.

“I got drafted all the way out in Manitoba and at first it was ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t know if I’m going to go all the way out there, I’m not going to Manitoba,’” Ponte said. “I went out there as a 15-year-old to do all the skates in the summer time at the camp and it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot that summer.”

Something else also happened that helped him to overcome his reservations about the move.

Ponte had good conversations with Johnston and general manager Kelly McCrimmon prior to coming out, something he said made him feel a lot better when he arrived.

“Crim was so good to me,” Ponte said. “I owe a lot to him actually. He was so amazing to me. He put some trust in me that probably a lot of guys wouldn’t early on. We had a good conversation when I came there and at that point, he helped me really change myself around a lot and helped me mature a lot, and at any early age too where I saw things quite a bit different and really wanted to work hard and prove that he was right.

“Jonny was just as amazing. They were both so good to me that they made it easy.”

Ponte arrived in Brandon at age 16 in 1997 and quickly learned a lot about himself and the world around him.

The cold was certainly something new. When he visited Brandon at 15, he asked someone why people hung plugs from the front of their vehicles. A year later, after the team returned from its West Coast trip and his car wouldn’t start, he found out the hard way.

“When we left, it was nice and sunny and I parked it at the Keystone,” Ponte said. “When we got back, my car was a frozen block. Oh man! At that point it was ‘I think I need a block heater.’”

The stocky five-foot-11, 202-pound Ponte arrived in Brandon sporting a goatee, and that also merited attention. Johnston warned him in practice one day he would need to shave it off because it would bring him the wrong kind of attention during games.

“He was ‘Guys are going to think you’re tough and want to fight you,’” Ponte remembered. “I was like ‘OK,’ so I shaved it off.”

Ponte quickly made his presence felt, however, fighting six-foot-five Regina Pat Kyle Freadrich in his second game. In his first real hockey fight, he was battling a guy he thought was his exactly his size until Freadrich got up off his knees.

“My punches were just kind of going straight and then he stood up,” Ponte said. “It was ‘Oh, here we go.’ That probably wouldn’t have been my first fight if he was standing up properly.”

A couple weeks later, he fought three times against the visiting Moose Jaw Warriors, and had officially established himself as one of the tougher customers in the league. 

“The next practice after that, we’re skating around in warmup and Johnny comes over to me and was like ‘Hey Ponts, you can grow that goatee back,’” Ponte said with a chuckle.

Ponte’s game was built on his tremendous work ethic and competitive spirit, but he admits he had no idea how much fighting would be one of the defining elements of his career. 

While he piled up 285 penalty minutes with the Langley bantams prior to coming to Brandon, he also had 102 points. He certainly didn’t come to Brandon planning to fight.

“I don’t know where it came from, it just took over,” Ponte said. “I just kept steamrolling from there where I would fight a guy here and fight a guy there and then guys are looking on the game sheet before the game to see who has a lot of fights.”

While Ponte ably took care of himself on the ice, it also worked out away from the rink. His personality made the move easier than it might have been.

“I’ve always been one of those people who adapted to the situation and to my surroundings,” Ponte said. “I look back at it and am pretty surprised. Maybe I wasn’t smart enough to be nervous, I don’t know.”

In 49 games in his rookie 1997-98 season, Ponte had two goals, three assists, 129 penalty minutes and 17 fights.

Some hockey enforcers suggest the worst part of the job is not the actual fight, it’s instead the stress-inducing potential to be embarrassed. Ponte, who one online source suggests fought 142 times in his WHL career, took it as it came.

“I was so nonchalant about it,” Ponte said. “I didn’t stress out too much. I kind of believed in what I could do. There were some days after you’d had a couple of fights and were a little banged up that would look and go ‘Oh my gosh, I have to fight this guy tomorrow or this guy the next day or you would look at the week ahead and I’ve got this guy, this guy, I’ve got a busy week. 

“You know they’re coming, and especially with some of the bigger heavyweights a little later in my career when I was pretty well known, you knew who was coming and who wasn’t.

“I hated if I got embarrassed and if I lost I would be really mad and try to get back out and do it pretty quick again.”

Fighting has a mental side to it, and is certainly not for everyone, he added, noting his teammates were appreciative of his efforts.

“They respected that when I was on the ice, they most likely didn’t have to do anything or have to fight or if they went in front of the other team’s net, they were most likely going to be OK because if someone wanted to do something, it was most likely going to have to be with myself,” Ponte said. “I think they respected that and felt that level of comfort.”

Even with his early success, Ponte credits veteran Wheat Kings forward Darren Van Oene with saving him from himself. In their next outing after the three-fight Moose Jaw game, Brandon was visiting the Kelowna Rockets and Ponte started to mix it up with six-foot-four, 230-pound enforcer Scott Parker, perhaps the toughest guy in the league.

With Ponte’s family in the crowd, Van Oene quickly interceded.

“I’m not sure why I was trying to do something — something happened — and I was getting ready to fight him and Darren Van Oene jumped on the ice and pushed me aside and said ‘OK, I’ll take this one buddy,’” Ponte said. “I think he saved my life on that one. I’ll give him a shoutout because it probably wouldn’t have gone too well there in front of my family.”

 

Ponte certainly had great timing with his arrival. The Wheat Kings went 45-21-6, finishing a point behind both the Regina Pats and Swift Current Broncos in the East Division.

Brandon went 12-2 in steamrolling the Lethbridge Hurricanes, Regina and Calgary Hitmen before falling four straight to the Portland Winterhawks in the league final.

The whole season was a massive learning experience for the youngster.

“When I was back in B.C., I felt where I was as a hockey player I was very confident in my abilities,” Ponte said. “When I got there, it was like ‘Wow, this is another step.’

“You’re talking to all of these guys and a lot of the guys have been drafted to the NHL, and I wasn’t used to that at all. It was an eye opener for me so I really wanted to listen to these guys. To be on a team that was so good and so strong my first year and to go as deep as we did, honestly it couldn’t have made my first year any better. 

“We had a great team and a great group of guys.”

Ponte returned for the 1998-99 season looking for more. He improved his offence from five points in 49 games as a rookie to 18 points in 54 games. His penalty totals took a big jump as well, from 129 to 235.

His biggest gains came in 1999-2000 with what proved to be career-high totals of 14 goals, 13 assists, 27 points and 306 penalty minutes in 66 games.

Early that year, a young kid from Rankin Inlet joined the team. Ponte remembers meeting 16-year-old Jordin Tootoo.

“My first impression was they he was a pretty solid little guy,” Ponte said. 

And something else has stuck with Ponte for more than two decades. Tootoo had a bad burn on his hand in that first camp, so Ponte asked him about it.

“He said ‘We were seal hunting,’” Ponte remembered. “I said ‘You were what? Seal hunting?’ He said ‘Ya, we were seal hunting and something got caught up’ and he ended up getting a rope burn on his hand.’ I was just shocked.

“Me and Toots ended up being really good friends on the ice and at the rink. What a great guy. We definitely emerged as two guys together, and when we were on the ice together, I think the other teams were definitely taking notice.”

While Ponte was known for his fisticuffs, that alone wouldn’t have kept him on the roster indefinitely.

He quickly understood what else he needed to do to be successful.

“I wasn’t a first or second-line guy so I was always on that third line or fourth line, so I really needed to make sure that when we were on the ice, we weren’t getting scored on, and doing the best we possibly could that way,” Ponte said. “I definitely made it a big part of my game to make sure that we were being really strong defensively all the time. And my skating was improving. I was doing a lot of training to try to get faster and quicker on the ice.”

His dressing room presence was a constant. Ponte was named an alternate captain for his final two seasons, a reflection of the esteem he was held in by the organization, which had voted him most inspirational player and most community minded.

Ponte played five full seasons, missing time due to knee, hand, shoulder, wrist and back injuries at various times. But he did skate in 300 regular season games, putting him 10th all-time in club history.

It’s an accomplishment he’s proud of.

“To be there that whole five years, that really means a lot to me,” Ponte said. “That shows me what I was doing was appreciated and respected. That shows me what kind of trust Crimmer had for me, and I think that really definitely made me feel pretty good, especially for a player like myself.

“You usually want your 20-year-old kids to be more well rounded with a lot more scoring and goals, as much as you possibly can. It meant a lot for me to still be that guy and make that team and Crimmer wanting me to part of that group as a 20-year-old.”

He scored in his final junior game on April 30, 2002, a 5-2 loss to the Red Deer Rebels.

“It was very difficult for me initially to see that come to an end,” Ponte said. “I wasn’t sure where or what I was going to do afterwards with hockey. It just comes up so fast. That season and even the whole five years, you look back at it now and realize how fast it actually went. It was more bittersweet for me to be there for all that time but I was really wary of what to do next because I felt that was such big part of me. Brandon helped me grow up as a person. I matured a lot more.”

Ponte hadn’t been drafted but he had attended National Hockey League camps with the Calgary Flames and Nashville Predators, so pro hockey was one option. Going to school was the other.

“I didn’t want to be one of those guys who was just chasing hockey,” Ponte said. “At that point I was 21 years old and never had a real job. I was a little confused on what I should be doing.”

He eventually made his mind up to play pro hockey, heading down to join the Austin Ice Bats of the Central Hockey League at the invitation of former Brandon teammate Kelly Smart. He played 25 games with the Ice Bats, who also had former Wheat Kings defenceman Scott McCallum in the lineup, before deciding he didn’t want to lose his WHL scholarship money by playing a full season of pro.

He had been talking to coaches at the University of Manitoba, and joined former Brandon teammates Jomar Cruz and Aaron Goldade with the Bisons after Christmas. 

Ponte put up seven points in 12 games in the second semester, but university hockey wasn’t a decent fit.

“It was good hockey and a great group of guys,” Ponte said. “… It wasn’t really my style of hockey. Obviously there is no fighting in university hockey or anything like that and it was just really chippy. Guys were always sticking you and I just couldn’t get myself to play that style of hockey.”

He almost couldn’t have picked a more different destination when he chose to head to the Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey, which is often called the toughest hockey league in the world.

The teams all had multiple enforcers, and fisticuffs were encouraged.

Ponte received an invitation to join the now-defunct Laval Chiefs. 

“Hindsight 20-20, I might have made a different choice, but that’s the choice I made,” Ponte said. “It was a lot of fun and a lot of great guys.”

When he signed his contract, one of the conditions of the deal was being provided a two-bedroom apartment to himself. After he was picked up at the airport, he dropped his stuff off and then went to the rink. He quickly discovered six of his teammates were living up in the attic, with the sounds of pucks hitting the boards echoing from down below.

“I started thinking to myself, oh my gosh, if these guys find out I have a two-bedroom apartment and they’re living at the rink, they’re going to kill me,” Ponte said. “These were all pretty big guys and pretty tough guys so I thought I better ask one of these guys if they want to live with me.”

One of his new teammates quickly accepted the offer, and was joined by his dog, who was also living in the attic.

Ponte spent two seasons there and knew his hockey career was nearly over.

“I knew it wasn’t too far off there,” Ponte said. “I was thinking I can do this forever playing but I’m really not going anywhere here. At that point, it was time for me to get a job and go to school and figure things out.”

He returned to Langley, and got a job at a car dealership. He became a manager there and started going to school. He eventually tired of selling cars and became a financial advisor with Edward Jones. 

He’s now a certified financial planner with the Bank of Montreal.

Ponte and his wife Jamie have three children — Sophia, 13, Dominic, 10 and Kaide, 5 — and an active life.

“My kids are all pretty active in sports and stuff,” Ponte said. “My daughter and my wife are really into horses and equestrian jumping.”

Like their father, the two boys both gravitated to hockey.

Ponte’s rugged style of play does rear up on him occasionally now. He suffered some concussions during his playing career, and he has days when he’s sore. All in all, he said his hands and shoulders are pretty good.

Ponte holds Brandon’s career penalty minutes record with 1,234, a remarkable 360 minutes ahead of the player in second place, Tootoo. It’s a mark Ponte views a couple of ways.

“I take pride in it but I also shake my head at it,” Ponte said with a chuckle. “My son plays a lot of hockey and we talk about it and one of the funniest things is when we talk about how many penalty minutes I got. It took a lot of work to get that. I look at it today and I’m happy I’m part of the records there at least for something and known for something at least for playing there for all those years.

“I don’t think that’s the record anyone will break, especially with all the new rules and the changing of the game. It’s just not that game anymore. It’s nice for my name to be up there.”

Ponte does a lot of hockey development stuff with kids now, estimating he’s on the ice with kids 10-12 hours per week and does a lot training on the side. He wishes he could have done some of the skill development they do, noting he probably has better hands now than he did during his playing career.

He also counsels youngsters that work ethic can sometimes take a player further than skill, one of the lessons he picked up in Brandon.

“Moving away really helped me mature and have respect for everything,” Ponte said. “When coaches are training you, just listening was a big one. Work ethic is right up there as well. How hard we had to work and what we had to do when things weren’t going our way or we weren’t putting in a good game and having responsibility for that as well. Every time we stepped on the ice or went to school, it was putting in the work.”

He also did some of it on his own, albeit through the team.

Ponte became involved with the RCMP’s drug awareness program in Brandon, and went to schools sharing what he learned with youngsters.

He isn’t on social media, so Ponte had lost track of many former teammates. That changed recently after Cruz started a Wheat Kings group chat, and Ponte has happily been in touch with about 30 of his Brandon teammates.

He said a big part of his Wheat Kings experience was the people he met along the way, from teammates to billets to fans. He remembers all of them warmly.

“The guys were so overwhelmingly awesome,” Ponte said. “Everybody was so good, I don’t remember not getting along with anyone on any of my teams. It was awesome, and the billets were amazing. They were so great. 

“The fans were awesome. I’ve never been in a small town like that where everybody knew who you were. You couldn’t go to the cornerstore without a kid or somebody knowing who you were, and it was autographs and everything like that. 

“It just made it such a great place to play. They made me want to come out and play so hard every single time.”

 

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