Shades of ’83
Huskies look to last national championship team for inspiration Not only are they hockey Dogs, they are copy cats. The University of Saskatchewan Huskies are leading double lives as they pursue gold at the Cavendish University Cup national championship tournament this week in Moncton, N.B.
Even though most of them weren’t even born in 1983 when Saskatchewan captured its only university national hockey championship, each member of the team has the job of representing one of the Hustlin’ Huskies from ’83.
Underneath their hockey gear, they don white-and-green Moncton ’83 T-shirts to honour the national championship squad. On the backs of the shirts are the names of the old Dogs.
Rookie defenceman Evan Schafer pushes down his shoulder pads to reveal a shirt with the name Adolph on the back. That would be Dave Adolph, a defenceman on the club in 1983 and head coach of the Huskies for the last 14 seasons.
“He’s even sitting in my old stall,” Adolph says. “He passes better than me. He takes fewer penalties and doesn’t yap as much.”
Says Schafer: “The guys are giving me jabs in the room a little bit here and there.
“(The T-shirt idea) is really good. It’s something special. The big thing is to draw from it, take what they accomplished and hopefully apply it to us. Hopefully, we can bring it home.”
Although he played a part in the Huskies’ success in 1983 as an assistant captain, Adolph says he had nothing to do with the T-shirt theme. That’s the brainchild of captains Curtis Austring, Keegan McAvoy and Brent Twordik, along with goalie Jeff Harvey. The foursome came up with the idea at the back of the team bus at the end of the regular season.
“We were like, ‘What are we going to do for a playoff theme for everybody to get their heads around?’ ” McAvoy says. “It dawned on us that we had the possibility of going back to Moncton, the last place the Huskies had won. The alumni is an important part of our organization, so we thought it would be kind of nice that not only are we playing for each other on the ice, we’re playing for Huskie hockey. We’re much more than the 26 players on our roster; we’re also an alumni group, our trainers, our doctors, people who come to our games and support us.
“It was kind of cool when we were handing out the shirts. Dave was giving a rendition on every single guy. It was kind of neat the stories that somebody will keep from a national championship team. We see how important they are for (Adolph) because, for every guy, he had a long story.”
McAvoy, at 26, is the team’s oldest player. He was a two-year-old toddler when the Dogs won in ’83.
Seven Huskies were born that year: Scott Roy, Brett Dickie, Trent Adamus, Alekcei McAvoy, Derek Endicott, Stephen Mann and Harvey.
The Moncton T-shirts are part of the whole team-of-destiny theme, which the 2007 squad has adopted.
“We’re using everything that will work in our favour,” says Keegan McAvoy. “Other than that, we’re going to play our butts off like we have so far. Nobody quits on this team.”
After the Dogs won the Canada West conference title two weeks ago in Edmonton, McAvoy got a call from Dan Leier, who leads the Huskies alumni group.
“Danny Leier told me, ‘Maybe one day somebody will be wearing your shirt going into the playoffs.’ I thought that would be pretty cool.”
