Kraken draft pick Alexis Bernier learned his game on the chicken farm

SEATTLE – Team dinners can take on a personal flavor for Kraken draft pick Alexis Bernier whenever his major junior team travels around the Canadian province of Quebec on road trips.

After all, some of the main course might involve his family’s former tenants. Bernier, a 6-foot-1, 189-pound right-handed defenseman taken by the Kraken in the third round, 73rd overall in last weekend’s NHL Entry Draft, grew up on a 350-acre family poultry farm roughly 60 miles east of Montreal that produces 1.5 million chickens annually for distribution to Quebec supermarkets, convenience stores and restaurants.

“We eat a lot of chicken on the road in juniors,” Benier said this past week at the Kraken’s annual development camp. “And you never know. I might be eating one of ours.”

That’s one reason Bernier, 18, doesn’t bother naming any of the farm’s birds as if they were pets. He certainly spent enough time around the feathered residents growing up and still does when returning to the farm come summertime once he’s done playing for the Baie-Comeau Drakkar of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL).

“In the mornings, I’d do all of my (hockey) work and training,” Bernier said. “And then in the afternoon, I still work on the farm. I do a lot of things, like check the equipment and make sure everything is OK.

“But I’ll also do a lot of the not fun work because I’m the youngest guy. A lot of shoveling if you know what I mean. Not a lot of tractor jobs.”

That work ethic gleaned on the farm helped shape Bernier into the player he is today. His father, David, 46, who runs the farm in the village of St. Valerien de Milton, first owned by Bernier’s grandfather, was once a standout QMJHL player for five seasons good enough to get drafted twice – by the Edmonton Oilers in 1996 and, after going unsigned, in the eighth round by the Anaheim Mighty Ducks in 1998.

After bouncing around some lower-tier minor professional circuits for two years, Bernier’s dad gave up on the Ducks of California for a future in Quebec chickens. Bernier was born not long after his father took over the family business.

Come winter, his father and uncle, both running the farm, would build an outdoor rink on the vast property for the aspiring player and his cousin to train on. Bernier’s dad would be out there working with him daily on drills.

“He taught me discipline and to always give maximum effort,” Bernier said. “And I think that’s a part of my identity. To come and play hard. And to be competitive. He gave me those values.”

At first, his father trained young Alexis to be a forward just as he’d once been as a yearly 35-goal-scoring right wing in the junior ranks. But he eventually noticed something.

“When he started to play on the farm, he’d always stay back,” David Bernier said of his son. “He’d never go to net. He’d always stay back, always think defensively before trying to do anything offensively.

“So, we started to put him on defense.”

His son took over from there. His father today feels the best thing he shared with young Alexis from his pro days isn’t as much about on-ice drills as mindset.

“The thing that I always tell him is that hard work will lead somewhere,” he said. “And he always works hard in the gym and at the rink. I think that’s something I passed to him.”

After all, his dad learned firsthand how fleeting a pro career could be. Despite being drafted by NHL teams, he never made it beyond the Western Professional Hockey League and United Hockey League as a pro – chalking it up to never quite seizing the moment or being at the right place, right time.

The work ethic paid off in a different way, taking him from a fringe pro hockey player to a megaproducer of chickens. Quebec produces about a quarter of all chickens sold for consumption in Canada, so there’s plenty of provincewide competition between its farms.

The Bernier family farm doesn’t sell directly to restaurants and stores, but to a hatchery that puts finishing commercial touches on the birds before selling them under its highly popular Exceldor brand. They also grow corn and soybeans on the farm to sell to flour mills to pay for food to feed their chickens.

“We don’t have a lot of employees,” Alexis Bernier said. “My dad is with his brother and my cousins. But there are some chicken farms in Quebec that have about 30 employees. My dad doesn’t have that. But for just him and my uncle, he’s doing pretty good.”

Bernier’s team from Baie-Comeau, about 385 miles northeast of the farm, had more wins last season with 53 than any team in the QMJHL, Ontario Hockey League or Western Hockey League circuits comprising the Canadian major junior ranks. But after breezing through the opening three playoff rounds with a 12-1 record, the Drakkar were swept 4-0 by Drummondville in the QMJHL championship round.

It was a solid season for Bernier, who notched 37 regular-season points and nine more in the playoffs. He anchored a stellar Baie-Comeau defensive group that allowed only 163 goals, a total 20 fewer than the next stingiest Drummondville team.

“I had a big role playing in all situations,” Bernier said. “I think my biggest asset is my defensive game, my physical game. This is why the Kraken drafted me and where I still have to improve.”

He’ll likely need that added physical dimension to get a true NHL shot. While lauded as a responsible, two-way defender, the offensive side of his game doesn’t leap out in an era where NHL defensemen such as Cale Makar, Roman Josi, Erik Karlsson and the Kraken’s Vince Dunn are expected to top 60 points per season.

Some of it could be from his June birth date. He turned 18 just two weeks ago and played his entire rookie major junior season at 16 at a level typically for players aged 17-to-20.

Bernier is adept at quickly moving pucks out of his own end – often through crisp, pinpoint passes – but still leans toward that defense-first mentality initially displayed years ago on the family farm. During 3-on-3 scrimmages at this past week’s development camp, he tried to “keep my game simple” and move the puck when he could.

While focused on becoming a complete “shutdown defender” he says he’ll still produce offense when situations call for it.

“I’m not the most (offensively) skilled guy out there but I’m also not stupid,” he said, grinning. “I can still make some plays.”

And if his NHL dream doesn’t pan out, there’s always a burgeoning chicken empire waiting back home. Even if Bernier does someday make the Kraken, retiring to a life of wide-open spaces and honest work doesn’t faze him.

“It’s pretty big and very fun because we have a lot of space,” he said of his family’s farmland. “I’m a guy that loves to be outside and doing outside activities.”

And by then, perhaps armed with a pro hockey pedigree, he’ll have graduated to less shoveling and more tractor driving.