Wilsons meet as foes for first time

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/03/2023 (1032 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Oct. 11, brothers Wyatt and Tony Wilson suited up for the Victoria Royals against the visiting Kelowna Rockets. The teenagers from Swift Current couldn’t have imagined what the next few months would bring.

Wyatt, who is 19, broke his leg that night and didn’t return to action until Feb. 8. Meanwhile, the five-foot-10, 189-pound forward Tony asked for a trade after a Western Hockey League game on Nov. 12, and ended up with the Brandon Wheat Kings on Nov. 24. On Dec. 5, the Winnipeg Ice acquired the six-foot-three, 208-pound defenceman Wyatt.

In other words, in 12 days the tightly knit brothers from Swift Current went from being teammates to being divisional rivals. They met on the ice for the first time on Saturday with parents Dory and Chrissy and other family in the Westoba Place stands cheering them on.

“It’s pretty exciting for them but a little nerve-racking too,” Tony said. “They want us to see both of us succeed and not screw up too bad on separate teams. It was pretty cool to see them wearing a mix of the jerseys. My dad had a Wheat Kings jersey on and my mom had a Winnipeg jersey on. It was pretty cool to see.

“It was a little awkward. I was used to warming up with him in Vic but chatting on the red-line, it was ‘Holy cow, we’re playing against each other! I better keep my head up tonight.’”

The older brother agreed.

“I thought it was obviously pretty cool,” Wyatt said. “Our parents were super excited and proud to see us out there. They’re used to seeing us on the same team in Victoria but now we’re playing against each other.”

The two suited up at the Yale Hockey Academy in Abbotsford, B.C., during the 2018-19 season, with Tony heading to the Northern Alberta under-15 prep squad for the 2019-20 season and Wyatt joining the Moose Jaw Warriors U18 AAA program.

They both skated for the Warriors in the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season — Saskatchewan is open territory, which means players can go wherever they want to play — and then they made the jump to the Western Hockey League with Victoria last season.

Tony got into 63 games last season at age 16, with Wyatt playing in 51 at age 18. Everything seemed fine this season until it wasn’t.

Wyatt wasn’t sure what was going to happen after he suffered the injury on his 19th birthday. He broke his left tibia and suffered a spiral fracture in his fibula when a player fell on it, with surgery done three days later.

He recovered for two months at home in Swift Current and was told he likely wouldn’t be back for the regular season. When he was traded to Winnipeg, he arrived in town around Jan. 5 and the Ice doctors thought he could be back earlier.

They were right: He made his Winnipeg debut on Feb. 8 after a lot of hard work in the gym and skating on his own.

“It still gives me a little trouble,” Wyatt said. “It’s super sore after games and some of the nerve endings they had to cut through still bother me a little bit but just to be back out there was unbelievable.”

That potentially set up four games between the brothers in the last month of the season, with Winnipeg blasting Brandon 8-3 in the first one on Saturday. They play against each other again on Sunday in Winnipeg.

Even though he was wary of skating against his older brother, Tony was happy when he heard the news of Wyatt’s trade out east.

“I was obviously excited,” Tony said. “I was hoping maybe he could land in Brandon — I heard a little bit of talk about that — but once I heard he was going to Winnipeg, I was pretty excited for him. They’re a pretty highly touted team and they’re obviously going to go far so I was happy for him.”

Prior to Saturday’s game, the brothers had never officially played against each other, but needless to say, they competed at everything as they grew up.

“It was very, very competitive with mini sticks or outside shooting pucks or anything,” Tony said with a chuckle. “It was always a competition. I remember even running outside the yard, it was always who could get to a certain place first.

“It got pretty bad at one point, and then as we slowly started getting older, it wasn’t bad. But to this day, whether it’s a little competition or a race, it’s still pretty competitive who can get there first.”

At the same time, Tony said Wyatt’s presence pushed him to be better.

“One hundred per cent,” Tony said. “Even now to this day in off-ice training in the summer, he always pushing me. If we’re lifting weights and I see him lifting heavier weights, you want to lift heavier and get stronger. It’s always good to have him there pushing me and striving for the best.”

Even the older brother admits he’s happy his younger sibling is with him. But he sneaks a couple of shots in with the praise.

“He’s always in your ear yapping at you,” Wyatt said. “He’s always the one stirring the pot I find, but it’s good to have him. Sometimes it gets boring working out, but when he’s there, it’s good to have somebody around, even though he can’t lift what I can.”

That prompts another round of laughter from the pair, who are clearly very close.

Of course there are differences. Like many older siblings, Wyatt is more solitary and more likely to do his own thing. On the lake, it will be Wyatt fishing while Tony is surfing.

“I can always look up to him,” Tony said. “He’s more the quiet one — I have to admit I am a little bit of a s— disturber sometimes and I can be a little too much. Some days when he suckers me or gives me a shot to the gut, I understand why. He likes to be on his own.

“… He’s obviously bigger too so I don’t like to screw around with him too much. I know when to stop. He’s good and he sets a great example for me.”

Ice head coach James Patrick said Wyatt has been a welcome addition to his club, since Winnipeg doesn’t have a lot of players who bring the same degree of sandpaper to their game.

“He’s a big physical, stay-at-home defenceman who has got good hockey sense and can move the puck,” Patrick said. “I’d call him a calming influence out there. He can block shots, he’s got some bite to his game, he can be a real physical, mean guy around the net. He’s really good on boxing out.”

Patrick chose not to discuss the special meaning of Saturday’s game with Wyatt. It’s something the veteran coach had experience with in the National Hockey League against his brother Steve, who is the father of former Wheat Kings forward Nolan Patrick.

“You’re aware of your brother on the ice,” Patrick said. “You know he’s on the other team, but in the heat of the action, you’re just playing. Just play. I didn’t want to make a big thing of it and didn’t want to address it. It’s a cool thing for them to experience but I just wanted to get through the game.”

In one of those twists of fate, the Wilson brothers actually ended up on the ice together a lot. For the record, Tony had an assist and a plus-minus rating of -1. Wyatt was held without a point and was also -1, but he had a shot on net.

“There were a number of shifts he was out there and he rubbed me out a couple of times and made me a little more sore today than I expected,” Tony said. “We were out there quite a bit.”

Naturally, the bigger brother received his marching orders from their mother before they even took to the ice.

“Oh ya, she told me before the game, ‘Don’t you do anything stupid to your brother,’” Wyatt said as both brothers laughed. “I was cautious with him.”

The two brothers each have their own friend groups in Swift Current, but the two groups have merged into a larger group that spends a lot of time together. Since their friends are also friends with each other, the Wilsons spend a lot of time together in the summer.

Now it seems they’re destined to spend a little time together in the winter too, albeit in different jerseys. They chatted at centre ice during warmup on Saturday, got through their first game against each other and then were eager to catch up after.

“It was definitely weird for sure,” Wyatt said. “Me starting in Vic with Tony and him being traded before me and I break my leg. It’s been quite the road. It’s been pretty surreal that I got to play against him.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @PerryBergson