Leaside resident Kevin Shier and his Ontario junior A hockey team, the Etobicoke-based Toronto Lakeshore Patriots, are both enjoying banner seasons, so far.
The Patriots are on their way to next week’s Central Canadian junior A hockey championships (called the Dudley Hewitt Cup) after wrapping up their league championship on the weekend.
Shier, 20, who captained his Leaside High School hockey team to the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Association (OFSAA) provincial championship tournament in his graduating year, meanwhile, led the junior hockey league in playoff scoring and was named playoff MVP.
Those honours, however, pale in comparison to another of the league’s year-end awards he also picked up - the humanitarian award which he received for helping to rescue a motorist from a crashed vehicle.
That amazing rescue happened while Shier, who spent most of his youth hockey with the North York Knights after starting out with the Leaside Flames, was in New York State checking out U.S. college scholarship offers.
He subsequently signed a full scholarship with a little known New York State college, Union College, which just accomplished a very big feat – winning the U.S. college hockey championship at the top division-one level.
Shier and his father were on their way to Union College in Schenectady from Syracuse in mid-December, he explained, when "we came across this truck that had hit a bridge. It was about 8:30 a.m. It was on fire at that point so we stopped and realized that we were probably the second or third car on the scene.
"So we jumped out and helped. There was a couple of people who were trying to pull the door open because the man was still inside the truck. Someone was able to cut the seatbelt and another man – him and I actually pulled the (victim) out of the car."
Seconds later the truck blew up.
Shier’s past volunteer work has also included helping seniors with chores and handing out meals to the homeless.
Shier and his Patriots team had a very good regular season: the Patriots finished first in their south west conference with a winning percentage of .717 (third in the 22-team league) while Shier was third in scoring on his team with 54 points (21 goals, 33 assists) in 46 games.
It only got better in the league playoffs. The Patriots won four best-of-seven playoff series (16 wins) while losing only three games. All three losses were by only one goal. Shier, meanwhile, upped his output to 32 points (8 goals, 24 assists) in the 19 games – nine points ahead of a trio of second-place finishers.
Still, he thinks the league’s braintrust got the MVP wrong.
"I think it’s all team success ... I think the whole team could have been given the MVP trophy. Personally I thought our goalie Evan Buitenhuis would have gotten it, for sure. He’s played spectacular. I thought that most of our playoff run was kind of on his shoulders.
"In my eyes, he was the one who should have gotten it. But I mean I’m obviously not going to sit here and say it’s not nice. It’s definitely a nice feeling but it just goes down to team and together we did something pretty special and I think we’re all pretty happy about it."
This year’s success is particularly sweet for Shier coming on the heels of last season in which he had to deal with both a mid-season trade (which he asked Aurora for) as well as a long injury layoff which limited him to 14 regular season games (contributing two goals and six assists).
He did show plenty of promise in his rookie year for Aurora with 34 points (11 goals, 23 assists) in 37 games.
In both of those years, his teams suffered first round playoff ousters.
Shier agreed he fits the ‘late bloomer’ category.
Somewhat unusually he made the jump into junior A without ever having played at the triple-A level. On the other hand, he pointed out that both his North York Knights double-A team and his Leaside High School team were very good.
At Leaside, besides playing hockey from Grade 10 to 12, he also played football "for three years as well - we actually won the city championship one year and we came second in my Grade 12 year ... I was a wide receiver."
He followed on the heels of Leaside grad Mike Bradwell, a current wide receiver with the Toronto Argonauts.
"When I was in Grade 12 he was a quarterback coach. He came and helped out with the receivers as well. He’s a really nice guy. I met him a couple of times."
Prior to Leaside High, he attended Bessborough Drive Elementary and Middle School.
For more info on the upcoming Dudley Hewitt Cup, visit www.dudleyhewittcup2014.com/view/dudleyhewitt
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