The Success Starts Here series features profiles on SJHL Alumni who are currently, or have played hockey at a post-secondary institution. Check out the full interviews every Thursday on the SJHL Insider Podcast and check back at SJHL.ca for profile pieces Wednesdays.
Nolan Renwick is in so many ways the archetypal prairie hockey player.
The Pittsburgh Penguins farm hand hails from a farming family near Milestone, SK, right on the bald south Saskatchewan prairie.
And like so many in the area, he is equal parts toughness, reliability and friendliness, with a truly underrated level of skill.
“It’s still a lot of great memories in that small town rink,” he says.
“That’s where I learned to play…just to wheel around alone on the ice, it’s probably minus-40 out. You can’t feel your toes on the ice. Those are some of your best memories of hockey and life.”
A 2001-born forward, Renwick spent his high school years up the road from home at the Athol Murray College of Notre Dame in Wilcox, SK.
As part of a loaded U18AAA squad in 2018, one that also included Seattle Kraken regular defenceman Ryker Evans, among many others, he won the Telus Cup.
The following year, as a 17-year-old, the centreman made the jump to the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League with Coach Phil Roy’s Hounds Juniors, and made an immediate impact.
He posted 27 points in 42 games on a skilled, veteran ND squad, though had his season hampered by an injury he sustained while blocking a shot during a wild late November win in Flin Flon.
Though the team was ultimately upset in the Survivor Series of the playoffs by a scrappy Yorkton squad, Renwick looks back fondly on the 18-19 SJHL season and his time in the league as a whole.
“I was a younger guy, and it wasn’t easy coming into the league,” he says.
“I didn’t expect just to come in and dominate or anything; I had to earn everything. I had a lot of opportunities there, played in a lot of different situations, but to succeed and be capable of playing at that level, I had to work for it. I think that’s one thing…the SJ pushes well. It’s not all pretty; you’re not staying in five-star hotels. Sometimes you’re going to have to go on a grid road for three hours with no cell service to get to La Ronge.
“But I think that’s what shapes you, and that’s what moulds you,” he says.
“And you don’t need everything given to you on a silver platter; sometimes you’ve got to go out and earn it. So, I think that (attitude) was definitely shaped in part by my SJ journey.”
The 6-foot-3 centreman moved from Notre Dame to Omaha in the USHL for a couple of years before he landed at the University of Maine, where he and fellow SJHL alums Adam Dawe (ND), Donovan Houle-Villeneuve (Flin Flon), and Tim Gould (ND) helped turn the program from a struggler to a Hockey East champion in 2025.
Over his four years with the Black Bears, Renwick posted 66 points in 132 games and ended his time there as an assistant captain.
“When I came in (to Maine), we were not a very good team,” he says.
“We had a bunch of first- and second-year students at the time, and we started the process of building a winning program from the ground up. We knew we weren’t going to go from being a bottom feeder to a national contender, so we started building that culture of, OK, we’re going to– if we’re not going to be the most skilled, we’re going to be the hardest working team. We’re going to be the most relentless team. And we’re going to be the most detailed team, and we took that into everything that we did. You’ve got to give a lot of credit to (our coach) Ben Barr, because he was a big believer in high-character individuals, and I think we had a lot of those. We had guys who were willing to go to battle with you. To be a part of that was pretty special, and I think it shaped the person I am today.”
Undrafted in the NHL, he was signed by the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins of the American Hockey League at the end of last campaign. He was part of the squad that ultimately lost out in the Calder Cup playoffs to Lehigh Valley, the Philadelphia Flyers’ affiliates.
His play earned him another contract, and even though he was briefly sent down to the ECHL in October, he dominated there and has been back up to the AHL ever since.
Renwick was also at Pittsburgh’s main camp this past year, sharing the ice with the likes of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
Not bad for a farm boy from Milestone.
“It was one of those pinch yourself experiences,” he says.
“You still have a hard time believing that you got to be on the same surface of ice with guys like Crosby, Malkin, (Kris) Letang, (Erk) Karlsson, and it still doesn’t feel real. Obviously, you have your championship moments, those are cool, but as a kid who dreamed of playing in the NHL, I think this was probably one of the coolest hockey experiences I’ve ever had. To be able to do drills with those guys, it was wild, and that’s something that I’ll never forget. It’s hard to fathom what those guys have done for the game.”
The family operations in Milestone focus on pedigreed seed production and agricultural supply (fertilizer/chemicals). They are also shareholders in a fenugreek extraction plant in Avonlea, Saskatchewan.
From lonely, frost-bitten laps in a small-town rink to Hockey East banners and NHL training camp ice, Renwick’s path has never been flashy or pre-ordained, but it has been honest, earned and unmistakably prairie-made. The same values that carried him through grid-road bus trips, culture-building seasons and long odds as an undrafted pro — work ethic, resilience, and quiet confidence — continue to define him as he carves out his place in the professional game. Whether it’s on the farm, in the weight room, or chasing a dream a level at a time, Nolan Renwick remains exactly what he has always been: a dependable, hard-working Saskatchewan centre who understands that the best things, in hockey and in life, are built the long way.
Find the full episode of SJHL Insider with Nolan Renwick’s interview here:
