Brotherly lead

There isn’t much that new Kraken center and free agent pickup Chandler Stephenson remembers from growing up in Saskatchewan that didn’t involve a big brother two years his senior.

He’d tag along with his brother, Colton, to the nearby outdoor rink in their Saskatoon hometown, shoot pucks with him day and night against plywood-padded walls in the family’s basement, or wreak havoc on a backyard trampoline seeing which sibling could bounce the highest or do the most backflips. They were “best friends” who never fought but competed intensely against one another at everything, to where Stephenson once inadvertently got some teeth knocked out in one basement matchup but quickly excelled at hockey against players his own age.

“You’re just kind of thrown into it because the older kids, they’re older, bigger, stronger and all that,” said Stephenson, 30, who took the ice this week at Kraken Training Camp, pres. by Starbucks fresh off leaving the Vegas Golden Knights and signing a seven-year, $43.75 million contract.

“So, he had friends that he’d go play with and I’d join in with them,” he said, adding: “I just think when you have an older sibling, and you kind of see how it’s done visually rather than being told, it just wound up being better for myself.”

One of those older pals he began hanging with, around age 10 or 12, was from a town two hours away and his brother’s teammate on a Saskatoon-based summer hockey all-star squad. He’d been staying weekends at the Stephenson family home to avoid travel back-and-forth to his hometown and it soon became a trio of the brothers and older friend denting the basement walls with pucks, bike riding to the neighborhood park and bouncing on the trampoline.

The friend? Present-day Kraken winger Jaden Schwartz.

“We played in tournaments and traveled a lot, so when I was in Saskatoon I’d stay with their family sometimes and Chandler was always around,” said Schwartz, who’d become well aware of both brothers over the years even before living with them; all three having competed against and grown to respect one another as star players on their respective squads.

“I got to know their family very well,” Schwartz said. “I was good buddies with Colton and then as Chandler got older, we always kept in touch. I was always rooting for him a little bit because when you play with somebody as a kid and then you grow up, it’s always fun to see him do well. I’ve known Chandler since I was probably 8 or 10.”

And Schwartz isn’t surprised that Stephenson, who first donned skates at age 3 to emulate the hockey-playing brother he idolized, became as dominant as he did so quickly.

“When you’re a young kid and you’re with older guys, I think it pushes you a little bit to where you want to keep up with the older kids,” Schwartz said. “And I think it makes you better. I did that as a young guy when my brother was two years older. So, it was probably similar with Chandler wanting to play with his brother and his older friends.”

When Stephenson was considering multiple offers in July from various teams, Schwartz was phoning and texting him. Schwartz even sent Stephenson photos of a local golf course he played at, knowing it was the next favorite sport of his good pal’s kid brother.

The Kraken in camp are expected to explore that early-life chemistry even further by deploying Schwartz and Stephenson on the same forward line, a trio that could also include Andre Burakovsky. Back in 2018, Burakovsky and Stephenson were young forwards on a Washington Capitals team that won the Stanley Cup along with present-day Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer.

Stephenson, a 6-foot, 209-pound two-way centerman, makes the Kraken instantly more competitive in the middle of the ice, on special teams and on faceoffs. He also brings a fierce competitiveness borne of that backyard competitiveness with his brother and some veteran experience to a Kraken center position already loaded with young talent in Matty Beniers, Shane Wright and eventually – the team hopes – this summer’s No. 8 overall draft pick Berkly Catton.

And having Schwartz around has made the team and city switchover more comfortable for Stephenson, his wife, Tasha, a daughter, Nellie, born in April and a young toddler son, Ford.

“It’s kind of come full circle,” he said with a chuckle.

Stephenson figures he was about 7 or 8 when first meeting Schwartz on-ice and doesn’t see much difference in the “familiar face” that makes him harken back to times with his brother at the house.

“Back then, he was funny, and he’s still funny,” he said of Schwartz. “He’s really genuine. And just the same from what I can remember. We were very young, but he still seems the same to me.”

Ultimately, he said, his Kraken decision came down to “family” and picking a region with good schools, a strong support network and other attractions befitting their planned long-haul stay. The importance of family to Stephenson isn’t surprising, given the close bond with his brother. And the fact he’d met Schwartz because his parents, Bev and Curt, frequently opened their home to players and friends, whether for backyard cookouts or simply a place to crash.

Stephenson was from a hockey family: His cousin, Joey Kocur, was a notable Detroit Red Wings tough guy who won a pair of Stanley Cups in 1997 and 1998 and another with Kraken Hockey Network broadcaster Eddie Olczyk on the 1994 New York Rangers. An uncle, Bob Stephenson, played a handful of NHL games for Toronto and Hartford in 1979-80, while two other cousins, Logan and Shay Stephenson, played professionally in Europe and Asia.

Schwartz while staying at the Stephenson home got a front row seat to how intensely the two brothers competed. And while he felt Stephenson was “a stud” hockey player at the time, he quickly added: “His brother was a really good hockey player as well.”

And that’s where the story of the three took an unfortunate twist.

Colton Stephenson was also a center, good enough to play his Western Hockey League debut game with the Edmonton Oil Kings at age 15. But that promising major junior start was soon derailed by seven concussions over three-plus seasons, limiting him to just 70 games total and forcing him to retire well before he felt ready.

The road to acceptance for Colton Stephenson was admittedly rough. He still chokes up a bit discussing how after his dream derailed, he spent years wondering what could have been. Among his worst fears: That he might have been good enough to make the NHL as his younger brother eventually did.

“I couldn’t say that to myself because it would eat me alive,” he said.

It took more than a decade – and some therapy – to get to where he is now. At 32, he knows he’s too old to chase that dream any longer. That’s why it wasn’t too long ago he finally “got up the courage” to ask his NHL-playing brother whether he’d have had a real shot.

“I didn’t want to ask him when I was still of age to chase it,” he said. “Because from my neck down, I’m perfectly fine and perfectly healthy. And me and Chandler? Same build, same body and everything. And I’m not injured. I have a body that could probably practice and play. But I just don’t have the brain that can handle it anymore.”

So, he finally asked: “Do you think I could have played?” – and got an immediate response.

“He was like -- ‘You were as good as me, bro.’ ”

Colton Stephenson had watched young Chandler try to follow him into hockey, initially too young for their local league’s age 5 minimum. So, at age 4, his parents placed him on a “ringette” team – a non-contact sport with straight sticks and pneumatic rings instead of pucks played mostly by girls on skates before hockey became widely accessible to them.

Wearing an oversized jersey that draped down to his ankles and a white helmet that stuck out amid a sea of black ones worn by the older girls, Chandler soon was outskating everybody. And that domination continued the following year when he began hockey, then the next season when, age 6, he was bumped up to play with his older brother’s novice-level team coached by onetime NHL forward Brent Ashton.

After Ashton posted some pregame lineup notes one day and told players to study them, Chandler burst out crying.

“Our coach goes over and says ‘Chandler, why are you crying?’” Colton Stephenson said. “And Chandler goes ‘I can’t read!’ He was too young to understand it.”

Colton partly attributes his younger brother’s strong skating -- which stood out during his own WHL career with the Regina Pats and into the NHL after the Capitals drafted him 77^th overall in 2012 -- to how they wore their skates as kids. Their father got tired of tying and re-tying their rollerblading skates every five minutes when the brothers would come back inside the house for something.

So, the brothers took to wearing those skates loosely tied in order to easily pull them off and put them back on. They got used to it and started loosening their ice skates as well. Somewhere along the way, that lack of ankle support likely strengthened their legs and made both much stronger skaters.

These days, Colton Stephenson, who earned a college degree in kinesiology after he quit playing, works as a trainer for a Saskatoon company called “Counter Move” focusing on skills development and fitness for young hockey players. One of his clients a few years back was this summer’s Kraken first-round draft pick and fellow Saskatoon resident Catton, who could soon be joining Colton’s younger brother in centering one of the team’s lines.

In June 2024, Chandler Stephenson centered the Golden Knights’ top line and won his second Stanley Cup. The game prior to the Cup-clincher, Stephenson had scored twice in a 3-2 win and attended a postgame press conference in which he was asked about his brother’s post-career struggles.

“That's something that he's still dealing with,” Stephenson told the questioner with TV cameras rolling. “It's 12 years removed from making one of the biggest decisions of his life. He wanted to be a hockey player more than anybody and, you know, to make that decision at such a young age. . . it's something he's still dealing with.

Stephenson went on to say his brother was “living through me” and watching each Cup game with a personal investment in wanting to see him succeed.

“I was just sitting there in shock,” his brother said. “And super emotional. He was giving this interview, he’s on TV. It’s his moment. And he decides that he’s going to give it to me.”

When Vegas clinched the title, Stephenson’s brother was there at T-Mobile Arena to celebrate heading down to the ice mid-celebration to pose for pictures. Not long after, when Stephenson brought the Cup home to Saskatchewan, he was tasked with getting it to a floating dock in the middle of a marina early in the morning before anyone arrived for a public celebration.

“He let me go on the pontoon and carry it,” his brother said. “So, I kind of had my moment with it. I still get emotional about it.”

Stephenson remains grateful to his older brother for being there for him throughout his formative years and cheering him on through NHL success. For never treating him like a pest, only a friend. And for never letting him win on purpose in their one-on-one childhood showdowns; but instead making him earn everything that came his way.

“I think having somebody that’s older and knows what they’re doing and how to do it, it just becomes easier to teach yourself when you’re watching,” Stephenson said.

Something the Kraken hope a now older, wiser Stephenson can pass on to younger teammates by setting examples of his own to follow.

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