CAMPUS ROUNDUP: MRU's Yaremko scores U SPORTS top hockey player award
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Nolan Yaremko has earned a senator’s salute.
On Wednesday, the dynamic Mount Royal Cougars forward was honoured with the Senator Joseph A. Sullivan Trophy as U SPORTS men’s hockey outstanding player of the year.
Leading both the Cougars and all Canada West skaters, Yaremko had an incredible season, collecting 39 points — including a conference-high 19 goals — in the regular season.
Unsurprisingly, it was Yaremko who notched the Cougars’ game-winning goal on Feb. 26 to lift the Cougars beyond the CW quarter-finals and into semi-final action. In doing so, this year marked the first time Mount Royal has made it through to the semis in the school’s U SPORTS history.
The Cougs sniper was also named both a Canada West and all-Canadian first-team star.
In his two years of eligibility at MRU, Yaremko has notched 48 points — including 21 goals — in 36 games and will look to continue leading the team in 2022-23.
The native of Spirit River, Alta., was selected in the second round — 29th overall — in the 2013 Western Hockey League Bantam Draft and earned a spot with the Tri-City Americans in 2014-15, going on to play all five seasons of his career there while becoming captain in 2018-19.
Through 278 career games, Yaremko posted 159 points — including 67 goals. In April of 2019, Yaremko signed an amateur tryout contract with the Stockton Heat, the American Hockey League affiliate of the Calgary Flames.
MRU teammate Riley Sawchuk was also honoured during the awards announcement Wednesday, as he became both a second-team all-Canadian and all-rookie selection.
As Canada West’s rookie of the year, Sawchuk finished just one point behind his teammate Yaremko for the league scoring title, posting 38 points in 20 games. He had four-point nights five times this season, taking the conference by storm in his very first year.
Sawchuk’s abilities on the offensive end were never-ending. He scored from all over the ice and displayed excellent play-making skills. He is the first rookie of them year to come out of MRU. The native of Prince Albert, Sask., will be one to watch in the years to come.
Yaremko and Cougars head coach Bert Gilling were also nominated for U SPORTS men’s hockey awards in the Canada West’s most-sportsmanlike-player and coach-of-the-year categories respectively.
TRACK & FIELD
The University of Calgary Dinos head east this week for the 2022 U SPORTS Track & Field Championships, hosted by the University of New Brunswick from the Irving Oil Field House.
The Dinos men finished as national runners-up at the last U SPORTS finale in 2020, and while much of the roster has changed in that time, this year’s squad still has plenty of talent going up against the best in Canada.
In all, 22 Calgary athletes will compete over the three-day championship meet, with the first events kicking things off at 11 a.m. MT Thursday.
The Dinos will be in action right out of the gates, as standout rookie Sienna MacDonald gets things going with the start of the pentathlon — the event she won a Canada West title in just two weeks ago. It should be an exciting five events for MacDonald, who is ranked third in the nation coming into the event.
Canada West female athlete of the year Osereme Omosun will compete in a pair of events this weekend, ranking second in weight throw (17.88 metres) and fourth in shot put (13.96m), in which she is the reigning U SPORTS queen. Teammate Alexis Johnson will also compete in both events and enters the weekend ranked third in shot put (14.45m).
Madison Mayr will look to return to the podium after finishing with a silver medal in high jump in 2020. The back-to-back Canada West champion enters the weekend ranked third with a height of 1.77m
Track star Eric Lutz leads the charge for the Calgary men. The fourth-year Dinos talent from Red Deer is the defending national champ in both the 1000m and 1500m after an incredible showing in Edmonton two years ago that saw him earn the George Gemer Award as the U SPORTS male athlete of the meet.
Lutz — who just recently won CW titles in both events — will have his work cut out for him, as he is ranked first in the 1000m (2:22.17) by less than half-a-second and currently sits third in the 1500m (3:41.46) in a crowded field at the top.
Brent Stephen also makes his return trip to nationals. The CW champ in the 600m finished eighth in the country in the same event two years ago and currently ranks seventh overall at 1:20.21.
In all, the Dinos are slated to compete in 16 total events over the three days, with the meet scheduled to wrap up early Saturday afternoon. Fans can catch all the action as the meet is scheduled to be streamed live all three days through CBC Sports.
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