Brandon Yip got his start in hockey at a young age, shooting around with his dad Wayne in the family's basement in Maple Ridge. It wasn't the backyard rink like the kind made by Walter Gretzky, but it did the trick.
When Brandon was six, Wayne and his wife Gale signed him up in the Ridge Meadows Minor Hockey Association where he played through to midget. In 2002–2003, Yip went on to the Ridge Meadows Flames of the Pacific International Junior Hockey League. From there, he got a shot with the BC Hockey League's Coquitlam Express in the 2003-2004 season and was named the Express' top rookie. He was named a BCHL first-team all-star at the end of the season.
Yip, a graduate of Fairview Elementary and Maple Ridge Senior Secondary, was drafted by the Colorado Avalanche in the eighth round of the 2004 NHL Entry Draft and has accepted a full scholarship from the Boston University Terriers.