Kelly McCrimmon Sells WHL's Brandon Wheat Kings

The name McCrimmon is synonymous with the Brandon Wheat Kings. Mention the city of Brandon to a hockey person and they'll think of the Wheat Kings or the McCrimmon brothers Kelly and Brad. The Wheat Kings and the McCrimmon family have been one in the same since the two sons of Byron and Faye left the farm in Plenty, Saskatchewan to play junior in Brandon.
The late Brad McCrimmon was one of best defensemen in junior hockey history. And his kid brother Kelly is arguably the best operator in the history of the Western Hockey League.

McCrimmon, now GM of the Vegas Golden Knights, has sold the Wheat Kings with the deal being finalized last week and announced on Tuesday.
"We're sure going to miss Kelly as an owner and on our board," said Bruce Hamilton, owner of the Kelowna Rockets. "I came into the league around 30 years ago and Kelly came in just before me. He's never had a team that wasn't competitive and his business acumen is tremendous. I'm proud to call him a dear friend. It's certainly a loss for us as a league but I'm thrilled with Kelly's success in Vegas. He earned his chance in the NHL and he's proven he's an excellent GM at that level as well."
Brad McCrimmon left the Wheat Kings for a storied NHL career which included a Stanley Cup championship with the Calgary Flames. This past Monday was the ninth anniversary of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash which claimed the lives of 44 passengers including Brad, who was coach of the KHL team.
"I went to Brandon because they invited me to camp and I was on their list I had never been there before in my life until I went to training camp. Brad was already there and one of the best players in the league. But I think, even at the time but far more with the benefit of hindsight, how good that team was in '78, '79, playing with Brad, what that meant to me at the time but even more with the way life's events have taken us, that was definitely as a player, would have been the most special time of my playing career," said McCrimmon.
McCrimmon earned his business degree in Michigan and eventually returned to Brandon as an assistant coach. McCrimmon would quickly become head coach and add GM and part owner to his list of titles. He purchased a third of the team in 1992 from Bob Cornell and then took full ownership in 2000.
"Selling the team was something that I never considered… arguably it's good business to consider what the future holds in respect to any business situation that you are in as an owner. I can't say that I ever did that because I loved what I was doing and I had no intentions of slowing down or doing less or having someone else do it for me. And then when I went to the NHL to work for Vegas, it still wasn't a consideration. I think as time has gone on, when I had the opportunity to become general manager, I couldn't envision in five years from now what exactly the Wheat Kings would look like. So it just forced us - when I say us I mean my wife Terry and myself - to have the discussion, which we did," explained McCrimmon.
"It's gone on for a number of months now. For our family, Mick works for the Knights. He quite enjoys that, he lives in Winnipeg where he wants to live and our daughter works for the Wheat Kings. But in terms of taking the team over and running it, I didn't think that that was going to be something that Chelsea and or Mickey were going to do, so you needed to talk about what the possibilities are. From there, selling the team was one of those options. In the meanwhile, through this, COVID arrived. The last three years, four years, that I've been in Vegas, I have still owned the team. The team has operated just fine in my absence, but I really thought that the challenges that COVID is going to impose on junior hockey that it was going to really impact the team that I wasn't there through this, so that was a part of it as well. so a slow and gradual realization - as much sadness as a decision like this brings, when we strip the emotion from it, it was the right thing to do. In time, Terry and I became comfortable with it, both Chelsea and Mickey were supportive, if of any one of the four of us weren't supportive we wouldn't have done it. But we all agreed that the time was right."
McCrimmon had an incredible run with the Wheat Kings winning two WHL titles, earning five trips to the Memorial Cup (one as a player and teammate of his brother).
"Kelly was good at everything. He was committed, he was an excellent hockey guy and he was a sharp businessman," said VGK director of amateur scouting Bob Lowes, who coached in Brandon for McCrimmon. "He did it all. It was a turning point for the Wheat Kings when Kelly came on. It had been tough times for a while before Kelly. But he made them successful. He made the Wheat Kings what they are today."
Winnipeg Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff played junior for the Wheat Kings while McCrimmon was a coach.
"It's odd to think of Kelly not owning the Wheat Kings. He's been synonymous with Brandon and the Wheat Kings. He's been a big part of the WHL," said Cheveldayoff.
McCrimmon was a key player on the WHL's board of governors including a long run as chairman of the competition committee:
"Kelly McCrimmon has been synonymous with the Brandon Wheat Kings for as long as most WHL fans can remember," said Ron Robison, WHL Commissioner. "During his long tenure as General Manager and Owner, Kelly not only built the Wheat Kings into a model franchise but also played an integral role in developing the WHL into the world class league it is today. His extensive knowledge of the game and strong business acumen have been a major asset to our member Clubs and the League as a whole for many years."
Most nights in the NHL there are meetings in the hallway between the dressing rooms after the game where members of the opposition look for old teammates or coaches. It's a rare night when someone from the other team isn't looking for a catchup with McCrimmon. The people, he says, are the greatest legacy of his family's ownership of the franchise.
"There's just a lot of great people. A lot of tremendous players that wore the uniform. I think we developed a lot of pros, a lot of NHL players which you really feel proud of. I think at the same time I personally always felt that the most gratifying aspect of working in junior hockey was just the impact you had on young men coming into your organization, coming in as boys and leaving as men. For a player that would come in and play as a 16-year-old to a 20-year-old, that would be a quarter of their lives at that point that you've had a real impact on them," said McCrimmon.
"We're proud of the doctors and the lawyers and the schoolteachers and the firefighters and the policemen and the husbands and the fathers. I think to be honest with you, that's where the greatest satisfaction comes. Then the other part of it that is really meaningful is just the ability to see guys along the way and keep in touch and run into guys whether it's Brayden Schenn and Matt Calvert that were here in the same bubble as us. Or Ryan Pulock who is now here with the Islanders, or people who are in Brandon or coming through Brandon or you cross paths with. That to me is what I loved about junior hockey. Obviously, no different than the national league, you're in the winning business. We did more than our share of winning. We had a lot of great teams in an industry that's very cyclical. I was always proud in Brandon that we either, in most cases, have a team that was contending to win a championship, or we were building one that was going to contend to win a championship. We were very rarely stuck in between. Helping people get better, as players or people, I think those are all things that I loved about junior hockey and my time in Brandon."
Closing the chapter of his hockey life in Brandon had Kelly thinking of brother Brad.
"When I talked to Brad's family about this I told them that it made me think of Brad a lot and I touched on what playing with him for a year meant to me," said Kelly. "I also appreciate that I think it meant even more to him. Yesterday was the anniversary of his death and I was bound to be having those thoughts anyway. That's all part of it. He was one of the best to ever play there. You definitely think of those things and we had a lot of great teams, a lot of great experiences. I'm not a guy that spends a lot of time reminiscing or reflecting on stuff, but when you do something like this it takes you down that path pretty naturally."