What ever happened to: The Vancouver Canucks 2003 draft class (Part 1)

Brandon Nolan (4th Round, 111th overall)

There are some players that have a far greater impact on the game of hockey off the ice than on skates and Brandon Nolan is one of those players. A member of the Ojibway Garden Lake First Nation, he grew up in Northern Ontario.

Brandon’s father, Ted, was an ex-NHL player and coached Brandon and younger brother Jordan (now a member of the St. Louis Blues) throughout their childhoods, later serving as head coach of the Buffalo Sabres and the Latvian men’s national team. Through hard work, Brandon was able to overcome many of the challenges faced by Indigenous youth in Canada and joined the Oshawa Generals of the OHL in 2000.

He was initially selected in 2001 by the New Jersey Devils, but re-entered the draft two years later and was picked by the Canucks as an overager. Nolan then bounced around the AHL and ECHL for the next few years, including a 19-game stint with the Vaxjo Lakers of the SHL (Elias Pettersson’s alma mater) eventually settling in the Carolina Hurricanes system. He was finally called up to the Hurricanes on December 22, 2007, where he appeared in six games and got an assist.

Unfortunately, a concussion ended Nolan’s career just two months later, but after two years of recovery, he enrolled in a business administration program and graduated with a diploma in marketing. With his father and brother, he started 3NOLANS Hockey Schools in 2013, a program designed to develop the hockey skills of Indigenous youth, promote healthy lifestyles and build leaders and role models in small communities. Since its founding, 3NOLANS has positively affected the lives of over 1,000 Indigenous youth across Canada.