Lethbridge’s Henderson making the most of college hockey opportunity

By Lethbridge Herald on January 30, 2026.

Nathan Reiter

Lethbridge Herald

It was a long, convoluted path for Ryan Henderson to college hockey, but the Lethbridge product is making the most of his opportunity.

Henderson is in his second season playing for the Bemidji State Beavers, an NCAA Division I program located in Bemidji, Minnesota. Bemidji is a city of approximately 15,000 people that is about a four hour drive south of Winnipeg. 

The Beavers compete in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) which features nine teams across Minnesota, Michigan and South Dakota. The conference consists of St. Thomas, Michigan Tech, Bowling Green, Augustana, Minnesota State, Bemidji State, Lake Superior State, Ferris State and Northern Michigan. 

Unlike a lot of other hockey players from Alberta, Henderson played all the way through the Lethbridge minor hockey system rather than committing to an academy. Henderson says he enjoyed the opportunity to stay at home for as long as possible. 

“Lots of my buddies, they all kind of stayed around Lethbridge, not many of my friends went to academies. A couple of my buddies went to major juniors right away. Being close to home, it was kind of easier for me. Just being able to stay at home was probably a big thing for me, staying loyal to my coaches and minor hockey. They developed me enough and knowing everything around there.”

Henderson committed to play for the Beavers before the monumental NCAA rule change last year which allowed CHL players to participate, after years of being barred from participation due to being viewed as a professional league.

Henderson did explore the major junior route, despite going undrafted in the 2019 WHL Prospects Draft. He did attend the Lethbridge Hurricanes rookie camp that year, but quickly discovered he didn’t have the size at that point in time.

Henderson, who stands at six-foot-two and 188 pounds today, says he only weighed in at five-foot-six and 116 pounds at the Hurricane camp. 

“The guy that weighed in before me was six-foot four and 215 pounds or something.” Henderson said. “After that, I was like, I think like junior A is probably how I’m going to have to go because I don’t really have the size to me right now. I think it was like a month into my junior season, a college team reached out to me and then I started looking more into college sports. I didn’t really know much about college hockey. I looked into it and I was like, yeah, this is definitely the play that I wanted to do.”

Following his minor hockey career in Lethbridge, Henderson suited up for parts of three seasons with the Drumheller Dragons in the Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL). In 111 career games, he recorded seven goals and 47 assists including a career high 33 point campaign in 2023-24 in which he was voted as the team’s defenceman of the year.

In 11 games for the Beavers so far this season, Henderson has recorded two assists, six penalty minutes and a plus-two rating. He recorded his first collegiate point back on Oct. 4 in a 5-0 Bemidji State win over Alaska-Anchorage. 

In an interview with the Herald, Beaver associate head coach Travis Winter says Henderson has a lot of tools that make him an effective shutdown defender.

“Ryan’s an athlete. He’s a very good skater and he’s got great length. He’s a competitor and he does things hard. His athleticism allows him to cover a lot of ground and allows him to be in good defensive situations where he can close gaps and kill plays.”

With plenty of upperclassmen on the Beaver roster, Henderson has been in and out of the lineup for Bemidji State.

“We’ve got a lot of depth at the blue line, and so Ryan hasn’t been in all the games.” Winter said. “We’ve been rotating some guys in and out, but when he does play, he’s in a defensive role. He’ll get some penalty kill time. He’s in a role where he’s expected to defend well, not get scored on, get the puck moving north, start to transition for our forwards, and be reliable for us.”

Despite not being in the Beaver lineup each and every game, Winter says he has noticed considerable improvement in Henderson’s game in his second full season with the team.

“It’s always hard your first year, especially for a defenseman. I find in college, the game is so much quicker and you have to make decisions so much faster. The game you can see is starting to slow down for Ryan and he’s able to process things quicker, see the rink better and make better decisions with the puck.”

At the time of publishing, Bemidji State currently sits in sixth place in the CCHA standings with a 7-8-3 record in conference play. The Beavers are in the midst of a six game losing streak that they will look to snap this weekend when they travel to Houghton for a matchup with the Northern Michigan Wildcats.

Winter says the Beavers are hoping to get back to what made them a successful team during the first semester.

“We started off a little slow and then we really found our groove and played really good hockey for a long stretch of the season and went into semester break, first in our league in points percentage. We were sitting in a real good spot at Christmas and so far the second half of the year we haven’t played at that level and we struggled here the last couple of weeks. We got a deep group and we’ve proven that we can play really good hockey and when we’re playing that way, we’ve proven that we can beat a lot of good teams.”

Growing up in Lethbridge, Henderson was not always a guarantee to play on the best team for his age group. He was cut from several teams during his minor hockey career. When asked what advice he would give to a minor hockey player, Henderson says he wants others not to be discouraged if they cut from a team. 

“If you get cut from the AAA team at a young level, don’t worry about it. I got cut from AAA. I played tier one multiple times throughout my career. Your moment will come. You just got to wait for it.  You’ll get that growth spurt and you just got to make the most of it when you get that. Just keep grinding, listen to your coaches and listen to your mentors. They all know the game and they know what’s going to happen. Keep working and everything will fall into like the way it’s supposed to”