Kalan Lind - Photo credit: Red Deer Rebels Hockey Club

By Regan Bartel

Lind's determined to play on NHL ice

‘Prospera Place is a great rink,’ Red Deer Rebels forward Kalan Lind

Nov 7, 2023 | 8:00 AM

There were no Red Deer Rebels players that wanted to play the Kelowna Rockets more Saturday night than Kalan Lind.

Nope, not even ex-Rockets d-man Elias Carmichael, dealt to the Central Division team this summer, was more excited to play at Prospera Place than his 18-year-old teammate.

Kalan, the younger brother of former Kelowna Rockets forward Kole Lind, was injured and failed to make the Rebels BC Division road trip.

“It sucks the last two years [being injured], as it is a game I always looked forward to,” Kalan told RocketFAN. “My brother used to play there, and I know some of the guys on the Rockets and coach Mallette.”

Kalan, who calls Shaunavon, Saskatchewan home, often made his way up to nearby Saskatoon to train with other WHL players including current Kelowna Rockets defenseman Caden Price.

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“I was a young kid, probably 11 or 12, I would always come up to Kelowna with my parents, and even with my brother,” he added. “I would even watch training camp [at Prospera Place] by staying with Kole at his billet house. We would come out as a family, and I would watch him play after Christmas and playoff games. It was a great rink, and it was awesome when I was a young kid.”

Kole was a terrific junior hockey player, scoring 39 goals in 2017-2018, and led the Rockets in scoring, 11 points better than former teammate and now Calgary Flames forward Dillon Dube.

“It was pretty unreal to watch him,” Kalan recalled about Kole, a fourth round bantam pick in 2013. “He had a really good shot on him at that junior level. When he was in Kelowna, he was a really good player. When he was in the WHL, it was unbelievable to watch him play.”

While Kole, now 25, was a second-round NHL draft pick of the Vancouver Canucks, Kalan is no slouch either after hearing his name called by the Nashville Predators in the second round of this past summer’s draft. The hope is Kalan and Kole can someday face each other on NHL ice.

“That would be the greatest memory of my life,” Kalan said at the suggestion, with Kole currently playing for the Coachella Valley Firebirds, the Seattle Kraken’s AHL farm team. “You always remember your first NHL game, but as kids, we dreamed of playing with or against each other when we were playing street hockey.

“When I saw him accomplish his first [NHL] game and his first [NHL] goal, it was probably one of the coolest things to watch because I know how much it meant to him.”

Kalan is not a pacifist on the ice, nor is Kole. Would the two ever fight, if tempers started to flare?

“Who knows,” Kalan said with a smile on his face. “We got into it quite a bit growing up and threw a punch or two.”

Like Kole, Kalan has a bright future ahead of him in the game of hockey after recording 44 points in 43 games a season ago, one where he missed playing against the Rockets when they made a visit to the Peavy Mart Centrium in Red Deer after being injured with a cracked rib.

Signing an NHL contract with the Predators in July, Kalan said he still has his signing bonus in the bank thanks to the generosity of his grandparents.

“I didn’t need to buy a truck with my money, because my grandparents buy each of us a vehicle when we are sixteen,” he said. “I took the boys [Rebels teammates] out for lunch one day, but I put the rest in the bank.”

When pressed about what type of truck he drives, Kalan said with pride it is a Chevy. When RocketFAN asked if his grandparents were instrumental in choosing that particular truck manufacturer, Kalan didn’t bat an eye with the response.

“I got to pick it out, they just paid for it. Not out of my pocket.”