By Laurence Heinen /
Shane Lust had the opportunity to go play hockey south of the border this season, but he chose instead to suit up for his hometown SAIT Trojans.
“I looked at the Trojans’ history and made my decision that school’s good here, the hockey program’s good here so I felt it was a good fit for me,” said Lust, who finished up his Alberta Junior Hockey League career last season as the most-valuable player for the Calgary Royals.
Through 18 games, Lust led the Trojans with 10 goals while adding 11 assists.
“We felt really happy about bringing him here as one of our recruits,” long-time SAIT head coach Ken Babey said.
After splitting a home-and-home series with the Augustana Vikings on Feb. 1 and 2, the Trojans owned a 13-4-3 record to lead the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference standings.
Lust had offers from a pair of National Collegiate Athletic Association Division 3 schools, but wasn’t offered a full-ride scholarship that Division 1 schools can give athletes.
“I looked at it really clearly and it was going to cost me and my parents probably 10 to 20 grand a year,” said Lust, who was attracted by SAIT’s winning tradition which continued with an ACAC title last season. “Now I’m going to go tell guys that I played with in the AJ how good of a hockey program it is and that we win championships here and we have chances to get to the next level.”
What Lust is referring to is the fact that SAIT Polytechnic is exploring opportunities to eventually join the NCAA ranks.
“It’s not within reason that we might apply down the road,” said Babey, SAIT’s athletics director who has tried in vain for several years to get the Trojans into the Canadian Interuniversity Sport system. “The system has been good but it’s getting antiquated. I think everyone would agree, we need a new system in this country and SAIT has strong motivation to push for that.”
When the NCAA announced in early January that it would allow Canadian schools to apply for Division 2 membership, Babey immediately started putting the wheels in motion to get support from SAIT’s board of directors and to develop a business plan.
“We’d need to build a two-, three-year plan going forward,” Babey said. “The interest for the selling of the product would be high.”
Despite almost 60 man-games lost to injury, the Trojans are once again vying for an
ACAC title.
“We’re getting by and we’re doing alright,” Babey said.
If Babey’s vision comes true, Trojan teams may be able to vie for more than just a provincial title down the road.
“It leads to some discussion and I think it’s challenging the process,” said Babey of looking into SAIT’s NCAA options. |