After graduating, Blankenburg decided to pursue his dream of playing junior hockey. He tried out twice for the North American Hockey League but had no success. Since Blankenburg has a May birthday, he still had a year left of eligibility for Midget Major AAA hockey after graduating high school; so he tried out for the Victory Honda 18U team in Plymouth, Michigan. He made the team as an 18-year-old and played the 2016-17 season while working as a Zamboni driver.

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A couple of months into the season, Victory Honda played in a showcase tournament with an injury-depleted blue line. Between the injuries and other players departing for the USHL, the team was down to just three defensemen.

“Our coach came in the dressing room between periods and was like, ‘Does anyone want to switch defense? We need someone,'” Blankenburg said. “I looked around the room, and I was like, ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll play D.’ I’d get to play a ton of minutes, and I had nothing to lose.”

So, Blankenburg played defense for the first time that weekend before returning to his usual position at forward. A few weekends later, the same thing happened. He transitioned to the blue line again, and the results were positive – so positive, in fact, that he began to draw interest from the same junior hockey teams that had turned him down earlier that year.

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After recording 10 goals and 18 assists in 32 games with Victory Honda, Blankenburg was scouted by the Okotoks Oilers of the Alberta Junior Hockey League. The following season, Blankenburg was living out his dream of playing junior hockey. He recorded 16 goals and 26 assists in 57 games during the 2017-18 season – as a defenseman.

As it turned out, Blankenburg would have to go all the way to Alberta in order to earn his next opportunity to play hockey in his home state. At 19 years old, while playing defense for Okotoks, he caught the attention of scouts from the University of Michigan.

“A Michigan guy playing in the AJ isn’t very common, and I was putting up pretty good numbers,” Blankenburg said. “Bill Muckalt, the Michigan associate head coach at the time, always recruited out in Western Canada. So he was like, ‘What’s a guy from Michigan doing playing in the AJ?’ So he came and saw me play.”

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When Blankenburg went back home for Christmas break, Muckalt invited him for an official visit at Michigan. While the program didn’t have any scholarship money to offer at the time, Blankenburg was immediately offered a walk-on spot with guaranteed playing time.

“After that, I was driving back home, and I called my parents,” Blankenburg said. “I was like, ‘If you guys can do this, this is what I want to do.’ That upcoming year, I ended up playing every single game my freshman year but one. So I don’t think it could have worked out any better.”