Hoping Shirley cracks pro radars again with U Sports all-stars

Collin Shirley is off to play for a U Sports all-star squad.

    Collin Shirley takes being tabbed as “the other Shirley” in Saskatoon area hockey circles with a chuckle.

    At one time, Collin was a star winger for the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers. Now in his third season as a standout winger with the University of Saskatchewan Huskies men’s hockey team, the 23-year-old’s exploits are often overshadowed by those of his 20-year-old sister, Sophie, who plays centre with the University of Wisconsin Badgers women’s hockey team in the NCAA ranks.

    This week, Collin will likely take on the role as the Shirley family member that gains the most attention. He will be in Oakville, Ont., playing for a U Sports all-star squad that will face the final group of hopefuls looking to crack Canada’s world junior team as part of festivities for the selection camp for the world junior team.

    Collin will be playing for the U Sports all-star squad for a second straight year against Canada’s world junior hopefuls.

Collin Shirley has 13 points in 16 games for the Huskies.

    The camp starts Monday and runs through to Thursday. The U Sports all-stars will face the national junior team hopefuls in exhibition contests on Wednesday and Thursday.

    The world junior hockey championships run Dec. 26 to Jan. 5 in the new year in Ostrava and Trinec in the Czech Republic.

    Back in the 2012-13 campaign, Collin played on the Team West squad that was one of the Canadian entries that took part at the world under-17 hockey challenge in Drummondville and Victoriaville, Quebec.

    Still, Collin’s exploits are often being dwarfed by those of Sophie’s.

    As a rookie with the Badgers last season, Sophie, who stands 5-foot-9, collected 20 goals and 18 assists for 38 points in 41 overall games. She also got her hands on the beautiful and shiny NCAA national championship trophy as the Badgers blanked the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers 2-0 in title game of the women’s Frozen Four tournament.

Collin Shirley is popular with the hockey community in Saskatoon and area.

    Sophie has hit bigger heights as a sophomore piling up 18 goals and 20 assists for 38 points in 20 overall games.

    She has played on Canada’s under-18 women’s team, has been a mainstay on Canada’s national women’s development team and has seen limited action with Canada senior national women’s team.

    Collin and Sophie’s youngest sister, Grace, is skating through her rookie campaign with the Badgers as an 18-year-old forward.

    In the current day, Sophie yields the majority of the attention.

    Collin has solid numbers appearing in 59 career U Sports regular season games collecting 22 goals and 27 assists for 49 points. He has four goals and nine assists for 13 points this season appearing in all of the Huskies 16 regular season games helping them post an 11-3-2 record.

Collin Shirley (#11) joined the Huskies after five seasons in the WHL.

    Still, those numbers seem small, when your younger sister is lighting up the scoreboard south of the border and is skating with Canada on the international stage.

    With all that said, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Collin is quite the accomplished hockey player and a super person with a fun sense of humour. The local product is extremely popular around the minor hockey rinks in Saskatoon and area along with Huskies sophomore defenceman Evan Fiala, who resides just outside of Saskatoon in Clavet.

    When Collin, who stands 6-foot-2 and weighs 195 pounds, joined the Huskies for the start of the 2017-18 campaign, his return was viewed as a much welcomed and anticipated homecoming.

Collin Shirley has 49 points in 59 regular season games with the Huskies.

    For five full seasons, he played out in British Columbia in the WHL from 2012 to 2017 first in Cranbrook with the Kootenay Ice and then for the Blazers.

    Over three and a half seasons of that time was spent in Kamloops. The Ice franchise proceeded to move to Winnipeg, Man., before the start of the current campaign.

    Collin appeared in 344 career WHL regular season games collecting 114 goals and 119 assists. Collin’s final two campaigns in the WHL with Kamloops were very strong.
    In 2015-16, Collin was a Blazers assistant captain and piled up 37 goals and 42 assists for 79 points in 72 regular season games.

    In 2016-17, he was the Blazers captain and collected 28 goals and 34 assists for 62 points in 70 regular season games.
    He did enough to warrant interest from the professional side of the game. 

Collin Shirley is a reliable left-winger for the Huskies.

    Knowing how tough a business professional hockey can be, Collin elected to join the Huskies and major in business studies.

    In the process, Collin joined a U Sports men’s hockey league that is often severely underrated for its very high quality hockey product.

    The U Sports men’s teams are mostly filled with former major junior players who were solid contributors on their major junior clubs and a number of those players reached star status.

    Players on U Sports men’s teams still train at an elite level. Due to the fact these teams only play games on weekends, players in U Sports are more focused at refining their skills at practice sessions during the week leading up to weekend games.

    They often have more time to refine their skills than players do in major junior or the professional levels. With the work done by U Sports players in practice sessions, you see a more polished product on the ice for games.
    Players in the U Sports game improve over the course of their careers, and are usually more ready for the professional ranks at the end of their university careers than at the end of their major junior careers. Their maturity is also a lot higher as well.

Collin Shirley had 233 points in 344 career WHL regular season games.

    Often, the experience among the players with the U Sports all-stars provides a huge challenge for the hopefuls for Canada’s world junior team to deal with. Those head-to-head contests are extremely competitive.

    With the Huskies, Collin has improved as a hockey player and is a better player now than he was with the Blazers. He is a better professional prospect now than he was when he was in major junior.
    Still, it seems NHL teams are addicted to focusing their time on youngsters. Players that haven’t kicked down the door by the end of their first three-year entry-level contract are usually cycled out of the professional game.

Collin Shirley (#11) has celebrated a number of wins with the Huskies.

    A lot of players find their careers wrap up at age 23 or 24.

    That is crazy to think about considering athletes usually hit their physical peak around age 27.

    It would be cool to see if Collin can capture the attention of even one professional scout to allow him to have a realistic shot at that level.

    Taking a chance on Collin would be much less of a gamble than the large number of players that are taken annually in the NHL Entry Draft.

    If Collin gets that chance, he might be able to on the fun front overshadow Sophie in Saskatoon and area hockey circles.

“Girls Rock Night” a home run again for Blades

The ceremonial faceoff for the Blades “Girls Rock Night.”

    The “Girls Rock Night” is still a hit out of the park for the Saskatoon Blades.

    The Blades have been holding the “Girls Rock Night” promotion for a handful of years now, and they had good mix for this year’s promotion that went with Saturday’s 4-3 shootout loss to the Kelowna Rockets.

    Before the game, the team holds a pre-game empowerment speech for various girls groups.

    A number of speakers took part in this year’s speech including NASCAR Pinty’s Series Shantel Kalika. Kalika, who is from Prince Albert, has been a star racer at the Wyant Group Raceway as part of the Saskatoon Stock Car Racing Association for a number of years too.
    Her NASCAR Dodge Challenger was on display in the concourse.

    Safety Rienna Rueve and left tackle Alyssa Funk from the WWCFL champion Saskatoon Valkyries took part in the speaking festivities.

NASCAR Pinty’s Series driver Shantel Kalika, left, received big cheers.

    The speaking festivities also included Katriana Philipenko from the University of Saskatchewan Huskies women’s basketball team and Elizabeth Salyn, Leah Bohlken, Shyan Elias and Courtney Cormack all from the University of Saskatchewan Huskies women’s hockey team.

    They all took part in a pre-game ceremonial faceoff.

    The host side had 11-year-old Taylor Hanley doing some of the public address duties as well.

    The Blades attracted 4,215 spectators for Saturday’s contest, and the representation from the various girls groups was obvious. They made some pretty good noise too, which added to the atmosphere for the night.

    Saskatoon led 3-2 until Kelowna scored the equalizer late in the third and ultimately took the contest in extra time.

    The Blades may have come up just short on the ice, but they netted a win again with their “Girls Rock Night” off the ice.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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