Pictured L-R: Battlefords North Stars alums, Kristian Lyon, Jaxon Steele, Regan Doig, Dylan Esau and Ryland McNinch. (Submitted photo/Regan Doig)

By Martin Martinson

College Hockey Champs

North Stars alumni shine with ACAC champion, Kings

Mar 28, 2023 | 8:00 AM

Red Deer Polytechnic took home its first ACAC (Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference) championship in 29 years over the weekend, with five former Battlefords North Stars’ now College hockey champions.

Former Stars standouts, Regan Doig, Jaxon Steele, Dylan Esau, Ryland McNinch, and Kristian Lyon were members of this year’s Kings’ team that took home the title with a three-game sweep of the best-of-five series with the defending-champion NAIT Ooks.

“It’s still pretty surreal,” Doig said with an audible smile when asked about the feeling. “The saying that you can’t really describe it is so true, but it’s been a lot of fun, and just means so much when you’re so close with a team and you win.”

A four-year veteran of the RDP Kings’ hockey program, Doig was one of the few vets on an otherwise young Kings’ championship team and said the journey to get to this year’s title only makes the feeling sweeter.

“We were so close that COVID year and obviously [the chance] got taken away from us, and then last year I thought we had the team and it just didn’t go our way,” he said. “So this year, being a part of it is just so much fun and it means so much for the school. Being the first one in 29 years for RDP, it’s such a good feeling to be that team that brings it back home.”

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This is the second hockey championship for Doig in the last six years, having also played a role in the North Stars’ SJHL title run in the spring of 2019.

Also on that ’19 championship team in the Battlefords was rookie Dylan Esau, who spent four years in the North Stars organization, before graduating to the collegiate hockey ranks with RDP this year.

Esau said to win the ACAC championship in his first year with the team has been a cool experience, with the added benefit of getting to share it with a number of teammates from his junior years.

“It’s pretty cool to have quite a few guys I had played with previously with me on to the college level, and to win it all is special,” Esau said. “With Doig being able to win the SJHL championship and then be able to come into Red Deer here and win this championship as well is pretty awesome.”

The Red Deer Polytechnic Kings, 2023 ACAC Champions. (Facebook/RDP Kings)

McNinch, who captained the Stars last year as part of the graduating crop of 20-year-olds alongside Esau, first joined the North Stars as an 18-year-old on another powerhouse team in 2019-20, robbed of a potentially lengthy playoff when the season was cancelled due to the pandemic.

McNinch said it means a lot to win at the next level and get to experience the feeling of being crowned champs.

“It was super exciting and obviously it was a really good run for us,” McNinch said. “I had never really won a championship before, so to do it in my first year here was pretty exciting.”

“It was really nice to be able to share it with some of the guys that I played in the Battlefords with before, and that’s one of the reasons why I came [to RDP]. There were so many guys from the North Stars that came, so to be able to share it with them was really cool.” – Ryland McNinch

Steele, who joined the RDP Kings the same year as Lyon, following the cancelled 2020-21 season, said between the familiar teammates from his time in the Battlefords to the numerous new relationships built over the last couple of college seasons, there’s no group he’d rather experience the ride with.

“Winning with a lot of the Battlefords boys and just a lot of the relationships I built here with the guys, a lot of these guys I’ll be best friends with for the rest of my life, so it’s really special to win with them,” Steele said.

“You know the saying, champions live forever, so I hope our group stays close for a long time and let’s hope it’s like that in the future too.”

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Martin.Martinson@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @MartyMartyPxP1