With each end comes a new beginning, or so goes the saying. For NHL players, each season sees exhilarating highs and brutal lows, punctuated by the fact that only one team of 30—soon to be 31!—can hold the Stanley Cup in June. The rest of the teams quietly pack their bags and head into the offseason where hope will blossom until they take ice once again in October, confident that this time it’ll be them.

Just ask Ryan Johansen and Brenden Dillon.

Johansen, a forward with the Nashville Predators, saw his team lose in the second round of the playoffs to Dillon’s San Jose Sharks. This year, Johansen, a Vancouver native, is expected to lead a Nashville team with high expecations. The Predators recently acquired star defenseman P.K. Subban from the Montreal Canadiens, a move that has made the team a darkhorse favourite in the eyes of some.

The Sharks, meanwhile, went all the way to the Stanley Cup final, running into the red-hot Pittsburgh Penguins. The Surrey-raised Dillon was a steadying presence on the team’s blue line. In the end, the Sharks lost in six games, ending the dreams of long-tenured veterans such as Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau, who have spent their whole careers in search of a Cup.

It was those kinds of players that inspired Johansen and Dillon to spend their offseason giving back to charity. From August 5 to 7, the two will host a charity golf tournament with proceeds going to Make-A-Wish Canada.

“Just as young players, we’re able to see it through older veteran guys in the league and how they give back in the summers to their communities and things like that,” says Johansen in a phone call to the Straight while driving through Vancouver traffic with Dillon riding shotgun.  “We thought ‘why not us? Why not start early?’ And we thought it was a great opportunity to get involved with Make-A-Wish Canada and kind of get started with our own thing. We’re just very fortunate with what we do and our jobs where we’re able to put together something like this and give back to such a great organization.”

The tournament will take place in Whistler and Dillon speaks highly of British Columbia and all it has to offer. “It’s kind of rare in this day and age for guys to play with their hometown hockey associations and growing up and coming back to their specific areas, and just in the Lower Mainland we’re lucky to spend our summers in places like this and have this many hockey guys in the area who are able to help us out and have a good time in Whistler and first and foremost giving back to Make-A-Wish.”

As for next season, it’s clearly on the mind of both players.

“With social media and stuff, you hear about things that are going on before they actually happen,” says Johansen about the trade of Weber — who was the team’s captain at the time — for Subban. “It was a bit of a shock, and it just goes to show it’s a business and teams are trying to win and Webs is an unbelievable player and leader on our team and I think PK is a great player as well, so hopefully moving forward we can just get better as a team.”

For Dillon, getting that close to a championship just means that the potential is there to go all the way this season. “I think us as a whole team, I think we’ve got 16 or 17 guys out of the 23 coming back,” he says. “When you get that close and get a taste of what’s there, it makes you want it that much more. I think going forward in the summer in the training sessions and getting back on the ice, every player grows up wanting to win the Cup and I think that’s going to be our focus again next year.”

The Potential Apparel Whistler Invitational charity golf tournament takes place August 5 to 7 at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler Golf Course