How the team overcame an injury-plagued season
Photo via UVic hockey.
On March 9, the Vikes men’s hockey club secured their first British Columbia Intercollegiate Hockey League (BCIHL) championship since 2017, shutting out Vancouver Island University (VIU) in a 3-0 win.
For the past two seasons, UVic and the VIU Mariners have been the strongest teams in the league. Last year, the Vikes fell to the Mariners in the championship game — and this was fresh in the mind of Vikes’ head coach Alec Dillon when preparing for this season.
“When you have a small league like ours, and you have a definite … top two teams … you’re recruiting just to beat them,” said Dillon. “We knew we were going to be in that final game, so we were preparing pretty much all season for that.”
After their loss to the Mariners in last season’s finals, the Vikes bolstered their roster by recruiting players like defenseman Edward Wruck from Grant MacEwan University, Jake Westhaver from the Vancouver Island Hockey League, and Connor Nolan, who played for the Vikes in 2022-23, leading them in scoring before transferring away for one season.
The Vikes roster faced significant challenges over the course of this season, running into one injury after another to key players.
To name just a few, returning forward Booker Daniel was sidelined from October to February, Connor Nolan underwent season-ending surgery, first year standout Jack Westhaver only played four games, and last season’s leading scorer Sam Schofield was forced to retire from hockey after a serious concussion.
“It really threw a lot of first-year guys into the lineup every game that I didn’t see happening at the beginning of the season. But they handled it really well and stepped up in big games throughout the year, especially in playoffs,” said Dillon.
Regardless, the Vikes coasted through the regular season with only five losses in 20 games, led by the consistent play of defenseman Kyle Crewe, who scored a team-high 30 points. Meanwhile, VIU lost just once.
Adversity followed the Vikes into the playoffs. They lost to VIU in their first game, meaning they needed to beat the Logan Lake Miners for a chance at a rematch of last year’s final against the Mariners.
Logan Lake stormed out to a 3-0 lead after the first period, forcing Dillon to pull his starting goaltender Hunter Tarves for rookie Eric Clark. The goalie change sparked a comeback for the Vikes, capped by Crewe playing the hero in overtime and scoring the winning goal, sending his team to the finals on Sunday, March 9.
Coach Dillon says the key for the Vikes going into the final against VIU was to frustrate them.
“They didn’t have to face a lot of adversity throughout the regular season, so we knew if we could get them off their game and shut down their power play, they’d get frustrated…. We blocked a ton of shots early on in the game, and they started playing selfish hockey.”
Backup Vikes goalie Eric Clark got the nod in the final, and he came up huge, making 34 saves. The line of Booker Daniel (who recently returned from injury), Thomas Jenkins, and Ryan Strange all played key roles in the game as well, combining on two of the team’s three goals.
The championship win is Dillon’s first as head coach of the Vikes — something he’ll likely cherish forever.
“It’s completely surreal. You think about it, you dream about it all the time, and then when it finally happens, you can’t believe it…. It’s one of the best days of my life,” said Dillon.
