By Nathan Kanter

North Stars’ Spagrud a quick study

Dec 1, 2016 | 1:00 PM

The injury was fairly serious – a broken collarbone – and Cody Spagrud was just 15-years-old when it happened. But when the North Stars defenceman recalls the incident, he’s all laughs and smiles.

He was playing in his first season of midget AAA for the Swift Current Legionnaires and went up in the air to catch a puck, only when he did, a Tisdale player saw a perfect opportunity to fill him in.

Or, as Spagrud describes it, he “cranked” him.

“A guy on our team got in my way and then he moved at the last second and this guy came flying in and absolutely cranked me,” Spragrud said with a chuckle. “I got winded, so I was like, ‘oh my god that was bad.’ So I got up, skated to the bench as fast as I could. I was sitting there and I could feel something in my shoulder. I was like, ‘okay, well that doesn’t feel good.’”

When he asked the trainer to have a look on the bench, she was brief.

Fond Memories

North Stars' 20-year-olds reflect on junior hockey experience: Part 1

7h ago

Trades in Sask.

Skilled trades need not limited to building homes

Apr 17, 2024

Battlefords Volleyball Club

13U BVC Impact take provincial silver in Warman

Apr 17, 2024

“She kind of pulled my shoulder pads over and she was like, ‘Yup, you’re going to be done for a while.’”

Spagrud’s shoulder is still not 100 per cent. While he’s not constantly in pain, he sometimes has issues.

“I still kind of feel it now because it didn’t really heal right,” he said. “But physio helps that and I’ve just got to make it stronger.”

The 18-year-old from Gull Lake, which is roughly 45 minutes west of Swift Current, was first put on skates at the tender age of three. He remembers crying the first few times put on the pond near his home, but after that he got used to it and “has loved it ever since.”

While growing up, he had the perfect mentor in his brother Justin, three years his elder and crazy about hockey too.

In fact, if it weren’t for Justin, Cody may have never become a North Star.

“My brother actually got listed to Battlefords here and that was when [former coach] Kevin [Hasselberg] was here,” Spagrud explained. “He wanted to have supper and meet my family with Justin so we actually met in Swift Current… and then the next year…I turned 15 and he actually just texted me and said ‘we’ve decided to list you.’”

As a “listed” player, Spagrud was now in the system and just had to work his way up.

Evidently, it didn’t take him very long.

The year after breaking his collarbone, he got in a full season with Swift Current but was also called up for his first career SJHL game – a road contest in Weyburn.

Spagrud remembers the game, but only vaguely and doesn’t remember his first shift.

“It was in February some time I think,” he said. “We played them and we ended up winning 2-1 that game. It was a good game.”   

Then last year, he made the North Stars as a 17-year-old rookie.

As a rookie, he did more than just play third pairing minutes. He registered 25 points in 47 games, second on the team in scoring among defenceman.

This year, he’s got 10 points through 29 games and has been playing exceptional defensive hockey alongside partner Levi Kleiboer.

“He likes to play the same style I do so I think we kind of just click,” Spagrud said. “He’s very smart with the puck, which makes it a lot easier on me. He’s always in the right spots at the right times and he doesn’t mind jumping up.”

“I think they feed off each other,” North Stars head coach Nate Bedford added. “Pretty much every game they’re both really good defensively. We’re comfortable with that pairing for sure. We might get away from it a little bit moving forward but we know that we can always come back to it and that’s the most important thing.”

Both players have been invited to try out for team Canada West, along with North Stars forward Layne Young – a team that will compete in the Junior A Challenge from Dec. 11-18 in Bonnyville, Alta.

That means Spagrud will miss next week’s game against La Ronge on Dec. 7 because of try outs and if he makes the team he would miss at least four more games.

“We hope that both of them and Layne [Young] make it and we expect that they will,” Bedford said. “They’re that good.”

Even though Spagrud is just 18 and has two more years of SJHL eligibility, he’s already thinking about his future. And not just whether he wants to go to college or not – which he does – but even what he wants to study.

He’s interested in business because he has always liked math and found it easy in school. Even if he doesn’t get a scholarship, he says getting a degree is important to him.

“I’d like to get an education just in case,” he said. “If hockey doesn’t work out then I do have something to go back on.

I don’t really know much about colleges or anything, like college hockey, because none of my family never really did it or anything like that so I’ve been kind of trying to work with Nate just to try to figure out what the best option for me is,” he said.

Spagrud certainly still has time to work it all out and for now is just focused on helping the North Stars win games.

And he could also find himself representing his country in Bonnyville next month against the best Junior A players in the world.  Not bad for a kid who cried when he was first put on skates

Nathan Kanter is battlefordsNOW’s sports reporter and voice of the Battlefords North Stars. He can be reached at Nathan.Kanter@jpbg.ca or tweet him @NathanKanter11