PORTLAND

Mike Johnston was 23 years old.

“First head coaching job,” the coach of the Portland Winterhawks remembered.

“Camrose Lutheran College.

“First day on the job.

“Drove to Edmonton to buy equipment for the year.

“Bought it at United Cycle.

“Guy who took my order?

“Ken Hitchcock.”

That was a while back.

“I was really raw and I was coaching in a league with Perry Pearn and a lot of really good coaches. I was there five years and I learned a lot.

“Every chance I had, I’d drive in and watch Clare Drake and Billy Moores with the U of A Golden Bears. Dave King was in Calgary with Hockey Canada back then. George Kingston was coaching the U of C Dinosaurs. I was so fortunate to get into coaching in that province then. There were so many top coaches to learn from.”

Mike Johnston has had an interesting career since those early days but no more, er, interesting that it has been this past two years as he takes his team against the Edmonton Oil Kings for a third straight WHL Final match-up opening here with games 1 and 2 Saturday and Sunday.

Originally from Dartmouth, N.S., Johnston would act as head coach of three Team Canada gold medal-winning entries at the Spengler Cup, win four medals, including two gold, as assistant coach with Canada at the IIHF world championships and two more as an assistant at the World Junior. He was also an assistant for Team Canada at the Nagano 1998 Olympics. Most recently, he coached Canada at the 2009 World U-18 championships.

An associate coach with the Vancouver Canucks from 1999-2006 and in the same position with the Los Angeles Kings for the next two years, Johnston returned to head coaching with the Portland Winterhawks where he’s doubled as general manager.

Which is to say that ever since he showed up to fill his order for hockey equipment for his first team at United Cycle from Ken Hitchcock all those years ago, Mike Johnston has steadily been working behind a bench somewhere.

Until last season.

How many times in all of hockey history has a league commissioner ever taken away a coach’s whistle before?

Last year Mike Johnston endured his own personal lockout.

He was locked out of every WHL arena, including his own. He couldn’t even buy a ticket to go to a game in Portland.

Last year the league dealt with Johnston and the Winterhawks about as stiffly, substantially and significantly as you could deal with a junior hockey franchise for a multitude of player-benefit violations.

First Johnston was suspended for the season.

In addition, the Winterhawks were fined $200,000.

Last year the Winterhawks were excluded from the first five rounds of the WHL’s bantam draft.

Thursday, with the holding of this year’s draft in Calgary, the Winterhawks will be drafting in the first round, having traded a player to Calgary for their pick. But they don’t have a first-round pick their own.

In addition to the suspension to Johnston, the $200,000 fine and not being able to pick in the first five rounds last year, they also were forced to forfeit their first-round selections in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Last year Travis Green moved up from assistant to take over coach and GM jobs for the rest of the year and guided the team to first place overall with a 117-point season. Indeed he took them all the way to the Memorial Cup final, where they lost to the Halifax Mooseheads.

And not once did Johnston set foot in the rink. Not even for the WHL Final to watch the team he coached in a seven-game final series against the Edmonton Oil Kings team which won the league championship the year before in a do-over WHL Final.

“I wasn’t allowed,” he said.

“I watched a lot of games on team websites last year.

“As a coach and general manager, I was never as familiar with other teams around the league as I was last year.”

When it came to the Memorial Cup in Saskatoon, the league relented just a bit.

“I was allowed to go to the Memorial Cup games. I sat with the players’ parents,” he said.

As far as Johnston is concerned, other than those first-round bantam draft picks each year through 2015, the Winterhawks have paid for their never-detailed crimes, believed mostly to involve paying parents’ expenses to watch games in Portland, etc..

“It was something to go through and deal with and try to move on,” he said.

“When the season started, I left everything behind me.

“And it’s been fun. This is such a great level to coach. You get kids at 16. You can really impact a kid in his development on and off the ice. You go to the NHL Draft and get to see them picked and live a dream. It’s really rewarding. I really enjoy the development side of it.

“A person loves being in the game. You get your adrenalin from the game.

“I’ve been a career coach. Any time you’re away from the game, you’re going to miss it,” said Johnston.

Like Derek Laxdal and the guys in Edmonton, it looked like he’d lost too many players, especially good players like Seth Jones and Ty Rattie to name two of 12, to get back to the WHL Final again.

But here they are, Portland vs. Edmonton for a third straight year and the Winterhawks here for a record equaling fourth straight.

“It really is quite amazing,” said Johnston.

“We had two tough 100-point teams in each of our last two rounds and we won them both in five games.

“I feel fortunate. Really fortunate. And to have the same two teams three years in a row and to be part of something that has only happened once before and never happened in the modern era … it’s quite amazing.”

The astonishing thing about the team Johnston coached to a 107-point season this year is how it grew into something so formidable.

The Winterhawks won 28 of their last 29 regular season games. Including their two playoff losses, Portland has managed to lose only three games since Jan. 11.

“Early in the year we had some holes to fill. We had a real transition in defence and in goal. It’s a tough league when you have young defencemen and goaltenders. It took two months to get our shots-on-goal-against and our goals-against down.

“Then a lot of guys were away at Christmas at the World Junior and two more at B Pool. During that point we lost nine games.

“But our young guys got to play a ton and in situations where never played before. That really picked up their play. It happened that fast.”

So how is Portland set up to play against Edmonton this year?

Johnston thinks the series will be a lot like the one and only game the two teams played against each other this year in Edmonton. It was 5-4 Oil Kings. In a shootout.

“Both teams are pretty even. I think that game was a pretty good indication where these teams are at.”

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terry.jones@sunmedia.ca