“Twenty-Five Years Later”

By P. J. Kennedy

The history of men’s hockey at University of Saskatchewan dates back to the 1909-10 season. In subsequent years, Huskies have accomplished a great deal playing within the Canada West Conference of Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS). Indeed, in the past eleven seasons alone, the Green and White pucksters have made it to the CIS University Cup championship tournament eight times. Yet despite such success, only once in the ninety-eight year history of the team has it captured the prized University Cup as Canadian university champions.
The lone championship was earned in 1982-83 under the tutelage of head coach Dave King. King has been recognized internationally for his coaching prowess with the Canadian national team, several NHL teams, with Huskies, in the WHL, and with teams in Russia, China, Sweden, and Germany.
In June 2008, members of the championship team gathered in Saskatoon and later at Emma Lake to get reacquainted, remember that great season, and then commemorate and celebrate what has been the high point of men’s hockey at University of Saskatchewan. This was an opportunity to consider the impact that this accomplishment has had on each player’s life.
King, along with Lori Buesch (NHL office in New York), Troy Parchman (trainer for Chicago Black Hawks), Peter Friesen (trainer for Carolina Hurricanes), and Robin Bartel (defenceman for Canadian Olympic team and Calgary Flames), found employment with NHL teams after their Huskies’ experience. “I wasn’t looking for something to kick start a professional coaching career,” volunteered King, “but that’s what happened. When we won the national championship, shortly thereafter Hockey Canada approached me about going with the national team and that led to other things as well. It wasn’t my motive, but it was one of the results of a successful hockey programme as people move on. We had a lot of our people go on to the National Hockey League.”
The vast majority of players and staff did not reach the NHL, but nevertheless they saw the benefits of winning the national title after having lost in the finals the two previous years. “It was a humbling experience” said assistant coach Bill Seymour. “At the time, it was the highlight of my career” said the long time teacher, coach, and sports administrator. “It was a springboard to my career and it was a blueprint for my future coaching. It gave me the confidence to say `I can do this; to say WE can do this.’”
Fellow assistant coach of the 1983 team Glen Hawker has found substantial success in the international business world. For Hawker, the fact that the team had “been to the dance” two consecutive years without winning the Cup before finally capturing it affected his life beyond the sport: “It was a character thing,” he recalled, “it was about character.” “It [the experience] has helped me in my business career.”
Defenceman Peter Anholt and team captain and centre Willie Desjardins went on to become very successful coaches in the WHL. For Desjardins, who has won WHL Coach of the Year honours, the lessons learned in the time leading up to and including the championship “were probably the basis for a lot of things I have done in my life. Going into coaching knowing what that team had to do to be successful, the type of people who were on that team” has helped me. “Now that I’m coaching I try to get good people, guys who want to win…and totally committed to the group” like the Huskies of 1983.
The effects of the accomplishments of the 1982-83 season and the seasons leading up to it have been significant for more than those who have gone on to further accomplishments in hockey.
“Ultimately the hockey comes to an end,” stated Hodgson, “and you get a real job in your chosen profession. I believe that what you learn in team sports in terms of the hard work, the dedication, handling adversity, the disappointments, the successes, dealing with team mates, the relationships…the skills learned and things experienced have an application to the real world.” For Gord Tait, a right wing, struggling together to win the championship “taught me about hard work, being a team player, sacrifice, understanding how different people bring different things to different situations and it has served me so well in my post-hockey life.”
Marc Chartier, who played left wing, saw winning the championship as “the icing on the cake, but the biggest thing for him was “getting to it [the final] and all the lessons learned along the way.” Centre Tim Hodgson also valued the “journey” to the championship: “It was unbelievably devastating to lose that final game in 1981 and then to repeat the same thing in 1982…again to lose a heartbreaker. When you’ve gone through that twice and had two bad results like that and then to finally get it right…[it] was pretty special.” Current Huskie head coach Dave Adolph was a defenceman in 1983. He, too, recalled how long it took to be the best team in the country: “This wasn’t a one year wonder, it was four years in the making.” Tim Leier, a right winger on the team, added “it took years to get there” and “it was a very satisfying feeling to [finally] win.”
Randy Wiebe concurs when it comes to his evaluation of the quality of players on the championship team: “At the end of the day it’s about the hard work, the commitment, and the special friendships that you build over the course of a few years that culminated in winning the championship.”
Leier remarked: “that hockey game was a microcosm of life; guys working together in the same direction.” “The friendships developed and the work ethic and moving in the same direction with good leadership doesn’t happen that often, but when it does it just clicks.” For Robin Bartel, the championship season was a season of personal growth as a hockey player but also the beginning of many lifelong friendships: “It was a huge stepping stone for me when I look back at where I was when I left junior hockey and basically a year and a half later I was on the Olympic team.” Twenty-five years later he looks at his fellow players as “brothers.” “You become so close,…just a good group of guys, classy and salt of the earth people.”
Speedy centre Dennis Fenske disclosed how “once you’re a dog, you’re always a dog.” For him, his team mates from the 1983 team were “a phenomenal group of guys” who demonstrated “integrity and a high level of commitment to the team and to each other” which continues to this day. “You share a special bond with all the people with whom you went through it [fighting for the championship] ” volunteered Wiebe, “you grow to appreciate the people you shared it with and they’re lifelong friends.” “All these guys are my best friends” voiced goaltender Bob Dougall. Even Doc Hader who ministered to Huskie teams from 1964 to 1996 noted how “I felt a part of the team.” As Chartier was proud to note: ”there’s closeness even after ten years or more because you all were involved in the journey.” “These guys are just like family” is the way defenceman Doug Archibald put it. Forward Arley Olson added “Some of these guys are the best friends I’ve ever had.” Doug Archibald agreed. “It’s all about relationships.” “I have a daughter getting into CIS sports and she asked me if it was worth it. I said `you will create friendships and stories that you will remember the rest of your life and that’s the important part.’”
This team, these individuals are what university sport is all about. Yes, they were one of a kind at University of Saskatchewan for capturing the national championship. Yet the development of individual skills and personal commitment for team goals goes far beyond any won-lost record in any single season. These men struggled and grew together to reach the final achievement they sought.
Perhaps Dave King summed it up best at the twenty-fifth anniversary gathering when he said: “I’ve often looked back at the Huskies’ team pictures and the one thing that always strikes me is overachievement. They were just a great bunch of overachievers. They were guys who were highly motivated, easy to work with. I look at where they are now with their careers after their education and they’re all so successful. I look at our team picture [from 1982-83] and we had three captains; we could have had twenty! “ “It’s amazing, they’re such a successful group. That’s the essence of college sport, it’s to get guys focused on their hockey but their education is the most important thing and the two should go together.”
Twenty-five years after the only men’s hockey championship was brought to University of Saskatchewan and the memories remain. As important, are the life lessons and friendships gained as a result of the journey to the 1983 University Cup.




P.J. Kennedy is the author/editor of Dogs on Ice: A History of Hockey at University of Saskatchewan and teaches a class entitled “Reading Culture: Hockey in Canadian Literature” for the Department of English