Raider from 1992-96 Steve Kelly (left) puts a hand on the Stanley Cup he won with the New Jersey Devils in 2000, while his son and current Raider Benett refrains from touching it in hopes he gets his own. (Photo submitted/Steve Kelly)

By Nick Nielsen

Two generations of Raiders

Like father, like son: Benett Kelly following father Steve’s footsteps

Jan 16, 2026 | 11:30 AM

Raiders fans today have been treated to watching the young Benett Kelly grow as a defenceman.

In the first 38 games of his WHL career, Benett has quickly grown from a defenceman who didn’t make the team as a 16-year-old to now finding his name on NHL Central Scouting’s mid term list.

For Raiders fans that have been around since the early 90s though, they’d still remember watching Benett’s dad Steve step into the faceoff circle for the Raiders. Between the 1992-96 seasons, Steve played four years with the Raiders. In his last season in 1995-96, Steve posted 101 points, something only Leon Draisaitl has done since in 2013-14.

After being drafted sixth overall by the Edmonton Oilers in 1995, Steve’s hockey career took him all over the world, including Edmonton, Hamilton, Milwaukee, Germany, Slovenia, and a stop with the New Jersey Devils in the 1999-2000 season that saw Steve win a Stanley Cup, a journey that started in Prince Albert.

So when Benett was drafted to the Raiders in 2023, Steve was pretty excited to see his son’s journey would start in the same place.

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“I let [Benett] skip school that morning so we could watch it, and we were sitting around watching the draft and I got up to grab a coffee and all of a sudden I heard Ben yell ‘dad!’ and looked up and he got picked by Prince Albert. I was super happy, obviously, to see that, and he was excited. Obviously, to get drafted anywhere was, I think, quite an honor for him but then when to see it was a team I played for, he was real excited as well.”

Benett always loved to listen to stories from his dad’s playing career, but it was the ones about his time in Prince Albert that Benett remembered best.

“He just talks always about how good their team was, how they kind of started out being a bottom team when he first got here to them being an unreal team in his fourth year while he was here and just kind of to see how the community comes together for those seasons where even if you’re not the best, they’ll still come and support you, to when you’re that top team. That’s just one of the things that has stuck with me.”

One of the messages that Steve passed on to Benett before coming to Prince Albert was to just embrace the community, and not just get caught up with only hockey. Steve said that some of his best friends to this day are all from Prince Albert, and even today he’s happy to see his son getting advice from the like of Skills Coach Mark Odnokon, who is still around the Raiders from when Steve played.

“I knew [Mark] way back, and I still know him and he’s a great guy and obviously a really good hockey mind. So I think that’s great that he’s there teaching the boys. But yeah, just a lot of guys and just being a small town, Ben runs into people and asks me every so often, ‘hey dad, do you remember so-and-so? I saw them,’ and I’m like, ‘yeah, I do’. So yeah, I think it’s pretty cool to have that atmosphere. I think it’s great being in a small town.”

The family connections to Prince Albert runs deeper than that for the Kelly family. Not only is Benett getting to stay with his grandparents, but his dad’s billets still billet to this day. According to Benett, they’re still just as supportive now as they were when his dad was playing.

“They’re so welcoming and they’re always super nice. They’re friendly. They’re always wanting me to come over, have dinner, they’re cooking for me, they’re making me treats. They’re just super supportive, and they always text me after games asking how I was doing or saying I had a good game. It’s just unreal to see that support.”

As mentioned, Steve’s career saw him climb all the way to the top of the hockey world with a Stanley Cup win as a part of the New Jersey Devils in 2000, eight years before Benett was born. Eventually, another one of Steve’s old teammates would win the cup and Steve got a chance to put baby Benett in the Cup itself, and Steve has taken Benett to the Hockey Hall of Fame to see it and point out his name to his son, but now the focus is on Benett’s career.

That said, one of Steve’s lingering regrets is not being able to go further with his team in Prince Albert, and he believes Benett has the opportunity to do so.

“PA is a very strong team, and obviously Curtis and the coaching staff believe in them. They went out and got some guys that they think can help, and I told Ben that these opportunities don’t come around very often. I went through my whole Western League career and we were very close my last year to getting there, we had a good team, and it still bugs me to this day that I never had a chance to get to a Memorial Cup or win that league title. So, I kind of tell them to put that in perspective and stay focused and you have an opportunity that doesn’t come around very often.”

As for Benett, he is loving his time in Prince Albert, and he hopes that with the season the Raiders are having so far, he can not only make his dad proud, but make the rest of Prince Albert proud as well.

“Community was one of the big things, just how everyone comes together. Best fans in the league, they don’t call them that for no reason. But yeah, obviously it’s just super exciting because of family and friends that we have here with him playing here, with my mom growing up here. It’s really an honor to play here and play for this city.”

Steve was drafted sixth overall in the 1995 NHL Entry Draft, and Steve and Benett both agree that there’s always been some playful competition for Benett to ‘be better than his old man’. With Benett making his second appearance on the NHL Central Scouting list earlier this week, Benett was asked if he thinks he can find a way to get drafted higher than Steve.

“Well, obviously him getting drafted sixth overall is pretty unreal for him. Obviously that’s a huge goal of getting drafted higher than him. You always want to outdo the old man and show him that you’re better than him, show him that you can play longer, but I think if I want to make it there, it’ll just be only hard work from here.”

While Benett is having a great career, Steve joked that he ‘could learn a few things from watching’ his girlfriend Presley Howell who plays defence for the Calgary Fire Red U18 AAA team in the Alberta Female Hockey League.

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nick.nielsen@pattisonmedia.com