Growing up in his hometown of Saskatoon, Blades defenceman Nelson Nogier has been fortunate enough to live at home for his whole hockey career. A fourth-round draft pick of the Winnipeg Jets in June, Nelson was named the WHL’s Scholastic Player of the Year and is currently enrolled at the University of Saskatchewan.
I’ll never forget the day I got drafted into the Western Hockey League by the hometown team. It was spring of 2011, and I was watching the WHL Bantam Draft from my acreage home just outside of Saskatoon. When the fourth round of the draft came around, the Blades called my name and Lorne Molleken, Saskatoon’s coach and GM at the time, phoned me up and gave me the news. Even then it hadn’t sunk in. I couldn’t believe that I could one day put on the jersey of the team that I had watched my entire life.
I attended my first camp as a Blades prospect a few weeks later. I knew right away that I wanted to play in the Western Hockey League. Soon enough, draft day and my introduction to major junior were in the rear view mirror. I was moving on and setting new goals for my career in the sport I love.
Despite the draft and the camp, I still wasn’t set on becoming a WHL player. There were so many options to consider, including the NCAA route. Being a relatively smart kid, this wasn’t an easy decision for me at the time, but looking back now, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
Back when I was only 15, I came into my Midget AAA camp, trying out for the Saskatoon Contacts. I was a just another player attending the camp, and had a difficult time cracking the roster. My status as a WHL draft pick didn’t mean much to the other players I was competing with. The majority of them had also been drafted, ahead of me. That season, my hockey career began to blossom. I went from a seventh defenceman in October to the team’s top pair a few months later.
The following year, I went into Blades training camp as a 16-year-old rookie, trying to crack the roster of a Memorial Cup host team. Making any major junior team as a 16 year old would be a challenge, but landing a spot on a loaded roster was tougher still. I played the best hockey I could and Lorne Molleken gave me the opportunity to start the year with the team. I played the first 10 games of the season but then the team sent me back down the Contacts. I thought I’d be spending the rest of the year in Midget.
At the time, I had seen this as a major setback. The Blades had traded for 19-year-old defenceman Graeme Craig, who would later turn out to be a huge role model for me. With the team bringing in Craig, there was no longer a need to have me on the roster and Molleken believed my development would benefit from playing a larger role with the Contacts. That changed in a hurry, though.
Inside of three weeks, I was checking back into the Blades dressing room. Injuries had opened up a spot on the blueline—a second chance to show what I could do. I jumped at the opportunity. I proved I could play in the league and stuck with the rest of the season, right through to the Memorial Cup. My exposure at the big event helped to win me a tryout at the Team Canada U-18 summer camp. And at that camp NHL scouts again saw me in elite competition, going against the best of the 2014 draft class, something that would help me down the road.
Back in the fall of 2013, I came to back to a different Blades team—we had a much younger group and though I was just 17 I was looked at as a veteran player. I played a much bigger role than I had as a rookie and wore an A. The Blades had a new coaching staff consisting of David Struch and Curtis Leschyshyn and they were going to give me every opportunity to succeed in my NHL draft year. Despite my season being cut short due to injury (a subject for a future journal entry), I earned an invitation to the NHL Combine in Toronto last May.
I made the most I could of the opportunity and in the end it all paid off. On the morning of June 28th, 2014, I was drafted in the fourth round, 101st overall by the Winnipeg Jets. It was a moment I will never forget and the start of a new stage in my career.
Coming into the Blades camp in August as an 18-year-old, I felt much more experienced and confident. I spent the first three weeks and the start of the pre-season with the team. It felt great to be with all of my teammates again and to get my legs back under me. After a hard summer of training, it was back to work. I knew the position the young guys were in. I knew exactly how they felt coming into their first WHL camp. I knew that one of my roles on the team is to be leader, so I took the young guys under my wing as much as possible.
But I also knew that I was going to have to leave the Blades before the start of the regular season and check into the Jets’ rookie camp, my first real NHL experience.
On September 10th, I headed to Winnipeg. After a few days in the city, the rookie team departed for Penticton, B.C., to take part in the 2014 Young Stars Classic, a tournament with the Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames. It was an unbelievable experience—my first taste of what pro hockey was like. I was given ample ice time and felt I played quite well. It wasn’t until we returned back to Winnipeg and checked into the main camp when I really started to understand where I needed to be as far as my development goes.
The first day on the ice with NHL veterans was so different than our rookie camp or the Penticton tournament. As a young guy coming into a camp like that, it’s hard not to be awestruck. You have to get past the “awe factor”—not as easy as it sounds.
The level of play and the pace of the game ramped up at main camp. The speed, intensity and desire was on a whole new level, something I knew right from the moment I stepped on the ice with the Jets. It was amazing to see how hard the veteran players work both on and off the ice. They take every opportunity they can to get better. For a player like me, it was just a matter of making sure I came to the rink everyday prepared and focused to continue to do what got me to the camp to begin with.
Soon enough, I wasn’t nervous at all. If anyone is ever going to believe in you, it starts with you believing in yourself. I knew that I was at the camp for a reason, and now I was given the chance to prove why I deserved to be there. The veteran players made getting settled in a lot easier too, by helping me out whenever I needed a hand. For me, guys like Mark Scheifele, TJ Galiardi and Jacob Trouba really stood out for making life a little bit easier on the young guys. They were quick to answer a question when I had one, and simply made me more comfortable by just having a friendly conversation. It’s not easy living in a hotel for weeks at a time, especially with a fair amount of down-time.
With the small camp that Winnipeg held, there weren’t too many new young prospects taking part. Head coach Paul Maurice wanted to get his roster picked sooner than later, and therefore, the day finally came when I was assigned back to the Blades and the Jets’ other CHL prospects were sent back to their respective teams.
.@NelsonNogier, who had a longer summer than most: "It feels amazing to be back. I just love the game, plain & simple." #BleedBlue
— Saskatoon Blades (@BladesHockey) August 21, 2014
After returning home from my first NHL Camp experience and getting back and settled in with the Blades, I thought about how everything had unfolded. Without playing under a coach like Lorne Molleken, a guy who gave me the opportunity to kick start my WHL career as a 16-year-old, who knows where I would be today in my career… I could just be another guy trying to live the “dub life,” playing hockey in the SJHL, who knows where. But with some luck and support, things have worked out so far. One thing I learned at Jets camp and that I always try to keep in the back of my mind is that you have to seize every opportunity you can and make the most of it if you want to make it to the next level.