Daniel Johnston adds a unique flair to his job as the first-ever video coach for the Brandon Wheat Kings.

Johnston, 28, played parts of six seasons in the Western Hockey League. While a series of injuries ultimately derailed his dreams on the ice, he’s found a new path off it.

With his experience in the game, the Calgary product brings an unusual level of expertise to his job.

“Video guys are usually just tech guys,” Johnston said. “I’m actually a hockey guy that learned the tech after. It’s just a different set of eyes. It’s different when you’re on the bench watching the game rather than the eye in the sky.

“You see it in other sports like football, where the offensive co-ordinator is upstairs giving coaches feedback. That’s kind of my role, also with feedback with players and going over their shifts with them and giving them coaching and teaching.”

Johnston began playing at age three, and came of age in the Calgary minor hockey system. While he dreamed of playing in the Western Hockey League, his hopes took a significant hit when he didn’t make his AAA bantam team in his first year of eligibility. He could have responded to that setback in two ways, but chose the path that involved a lot of hard work.

“I spent a good year, three days a week, with a power-skating coach and came back the next year and it wasn’t until two nights before the Western League draft that I started getting phone calls and thought it was even a possibility of playing in the Western League,” Johnston said.

He was selected in the 2007 draft by the Portland Winterhawks in the fifth round, 104th overall. (Brandon’s choice 12 picks earlier was a forward from Winnipeg named Mark Stone.)

At the first Portland camp he attended, Johnston was on the ice with future National Hockey League players Braydon Coburn and Brenden Morrow.

“That kind of opened my eyes to the potential,” Johnston said. “They asked me to sign and it was a dream come true. I always thought I would play Junior A and college because I wasn’t good enough but the skating really helped and I grew a little bit and became bigger and stronger.”

Johnston played at a prep school that didn’t have a normal season, so at 15 he was given an exemption to suit up with Portland for more than five games. The six-foot-two, 211-pound youngster spent two months in the city, playing 10 games in the 2007-08 season with a goal, an assist and 18 penalty minutes.

That earned him an invite to the national under-17 program, and he was among the final 40 players in camp, but a significant problem cropped up. Every time he hit somebody, the entire left side of his body would go numb.

He had an MRI that came up clean, but his chiropractor discovered a benign tumour wrapped around his C4 vertebra. He had the vertebra removed and replaced with plates, but lost 45 pounds and had to relearn how to walk and use his arms.

“It was a real tough recovery but Portland stayed with me,” Johnston said.

He returned to the lineup on Jan. 9, 2009, playing 16 games in the back half of the season.

On Jan. 10, 2010, the Winterhawks sent Johnston as part of a package to the Lethbridge Hurricanes for Luca Sbisa, who had already spent time in the NHL and was set to represent Switzerland at the Vancouver Olympics.

“I loved it down in Portland,” Johnston said. “It was a great experience being away from home at 15, especially in another country. It was a bit of a culture shock just going to high school.

“I had a coach in Lethbridge, Rich Preston, who picked me up at the airport in Calgary and drove me down. I was a 5-6 D-man in Portland, and he gave me the opportunity to play top-four minutes.

“My parents were able to come down on weekends and we played some games in Calgary. It was nice to be in a real hockey market again for sure.”

It also gave him the chance to face the Wheat Kings four times a year instead of once. He certainly remembers the Baby Blue Line when Brandon was hosting the 2010 Memorial Cup.

“My memories from early on were more like nightmares of playing against Brayden Schenn, Matt Calvert and Scott Glennie every night and matching up against those guys,” Johnston said. “That was no fun at all.”

Johnston began to think of Brandon as a first-class organization that produced high-end players, including a pair of his fellow Wheat Kings coaches, Mark Derlago and Tyler Plante.

After his overage season in 2012-13 with the Hurricanes ended early when he required shoulder surgery, Johnston spent five years in the ECHL with eight different clubs. But it wasn’t the moving around that ultimately ended his career.

He suffered more than two dozen shoulder dislocations in junior — it even came out one night in his sleep — and the injury issues eventually caught up with him.

In his final ECHL game, he shattered his tibia, requiring three surgeries over three years to get it right. He couldn’t get a doctor’s clearance to return, so it was time to find the next thing.

“Unfortunately, my career was mostly plagued by injury,” Johnston said. “And it wasn’t like normal injuries, it was pretty severe injuries. I’ve had seven surgeries in my life, so that’s kind of what did it for me.”

In total, he played 253 regular season WHL games, with 17 goals, 88 assists and 251 penalty minutes on a pair of teams that never reached the post-season.

He managed 198 more games in the ECHL, plus six playoff games.

When the playing dream ended, another took hold.

“Hockey has been my whole life,” Johnston said. “I owe a lot to the game with the people I’ve met and the opportunities. I got to travel a lot — I’ve been to all 50 states because of hockey — and I always had a passion for the game and always felt like I could offer a lot of value to people because I’ve been through it all.”

He had some former teammates who were struggling to score in 2019, so he started watching video. He gave them some feedback, and also began working with a biomechanics specialist.

“I got to understand movement principles and skating and shooting and got to look at the game through a different lens,” Johnston said. “Then I was able to incorporate the two and started my own business of skill development.”

Johnston is now based out of Dallas, Texas after his family moved there. He serves as director of hockey for a sports performance gym down there as well.

He also got a significant helping hand from a former Wheat Kings coach when he was back in Calgary.

Johnston knew Joel and Adam Lowry well, and attended their father Dave’s summer skates for 13 years, beginning at age 14. Johnston hadn’t skated for three years as he did physio on his knee, something he mentioned to Lowry when he was visiting the brothers last summer.

“He said come on out and push pucks, just be one of the guys,” Johnston said. “I ended up out there every day helping Dave out and going out early to work on individual stuff with guys. He said ‘Look, I have to clip all my own games. I do it all myself and I’m looking for someone. Would you be willing to come to Brandon?’ I jumped at the opportunity.”

One little hitch in the plans lay ahead.

In November, the National Hockey League’s Winnipeg Jets hired Dave as an assistant coach, giving him a chance to work with Adam. However, that never changed Johnston’s plans.

“I was committed,” Johnston said. “I wanted to be in the game. Even when you’re on the skills side of things and on your own, I wanted to get in and get a taste of coaching. Dave called me and had nothing but good things to say about (new head coach) Don (MacGillivray). With that blessing, I wanted to come and be a part of a team.”

He wasn’t disappointed when he arrived in January to meet MacGillivray and assistant coaches Derlago and Todd Miller, plus the extended staff, including equipment manager Scott Hlady, equipment assistant Jody Norminton and athletic therapist William Sadonick-Carriere.

“It’s not really something I’ve been a part of, where the coaching staff was more of a family,” Johnston said. “And it’s just being around people who genuinely care. Derlago is a name obviously known around Brandon, it’s legendary … Also Scooter, Jody, Will, just to actually work with people who genuinely care about the team is really interesting.

“It’s a great atmosphere to work in. Everybody has been super welcoming and it makes things a lot of fun, and I think that trails down to the players as well.”

One drawback was that he had to learn a new video program, XOS, which is used by most NHL teams. He had a month to experiment in it, and is now comfortable with it.

That’s a good thing because Johnston has certainly endured a baptism by fire this season.

With the team playing 24 games in the Regina hub between March 12 and April 28, the work is nearly constant.

On a game day, he gets up early and watches the late matchup from the night before, and prepares a pre-scout with video clips from two or three of the opponent’s recent outings. He estimates he watches the other teams for three or four hours every day.

Because there are games every night involving teams Brandon will soon play, Johnston is usually at the rink until nearly midnight on days even when the Wheat Kings aren’t playing.

He’s fine with the long, busy days in his first full-time job in hockey.

“That’s just what the job requires at this point,” Johnston said. “You have to love the game and have a passion for it. I have no complaints.”

Johnston helps with the team meetings and lends a hand on the ice during pre-game skate. He also gets to be a fly on the wall listening to the three coaches discussing strategy, which has been a good learning opportunity.

When the Wheat Kings are actually playing, Johnston is in the coaches room, coding the games in real time. That allows the coaches to quickly find a clip between periods if they want to show something to the players.

“I’m just providing information,” Johnston said. “If they need a certain play they want to see, if there was a turnover at a certain time, I kind of know what they’re thinking and I’m pulling stuff up like power plays, goals against, penalty kills, whatever they need.

“After the game, I’m putting all the games on their laptop and sending out all the goalie video to our goalie coach, Tyler Plante. Days are full for sure.”

With the condensed schedule, everything has changed, but Johnston does send each player’s shifts to anyone who requests them and reviews some things with them. Next year, in what will hopefully be a more normal season, he will do more skill stuff.

The biggest lessons he learned from the skills coaches he has studied is what to focus on.

“You look for the highest frequency events where the players have the lowest success rate in game,” Johnston said. “I’ll take three or four games and give them feedback off that. That way you’re helping them have the most impact on them improving their game.”

As a former WHLer who is just seven years out of the league and also the youngest member of the coaching staff, Johnston said he has been able to establish a good relationship with the players.

It helps, he said, that the current group of players are all eager to learn and get better.

“I’m kind of a sounding board for them,” Johnston said. “I don’t have the intimidation factor where you’re going to ask Don for something. If there is something they maybe don’t want to approach Coach with but they want some insight or maybe a different set of ears, I’m there for them.”

MacGillivray said Johnston has substantially reduced the amount of work the others coaches have to do.

“What’s really important is he does his job,” MacGillivray said. “He understands what his job is and make our jobs easier. He gets video to us and basically sits in this room and codes games, and when we’re not playing, he sits in this room and codes games that other teams are playing and get us the pre-scouts. He’s done a nice job of that.

“He’s starting to contribute more in practice. We have him involved him a little bit more and as we move along here into next year, he’ll be working more on the individual side with players in terms of their video.”

The unique experience continues away from the rink.

Johnston rooms with Hlady, Norminton and Sadonick-Carriere in the University of Regina’s Paskwaw Tower residence, where the entire team lives. He said the four are doing just fine.

“Nobody is taking each other’s heads off so I would say it’s all great,” Johnston said. “We all get along and still like each other after all this time in the bubble together, so that’s a good sign. I would say that’s the best-case scenario.”

The hub has created one pervasive situation, which is either good or bad depending on a person’s viewpoint. It’s virtually impossible to get away from the job, except for a brief time after the Wheat Kings leave the ice.

“After the games when the coaches get together and just kind of unwind a little bit, that is the time to put the laptop away,” Johnston said. “For the most part, through this hub it’s been hockey pretty much 24-7, especially with the condensed schedule, not just for us but everyone.”

In the long term, Johnston would love to join them behind the bench one day as a coach. But he’s thrilled with the Hockey 101 course he’s taking in Regina.

“I get tons of feedback from Don, I watch every team play so I know all the systems, the tendencies, the individual players,” Johnston said. “It’s a great introduction. From an experience standpoint, I would love to be behind the bench some day but right now I’m just getting my feet wet.”