From USask to the Olympics and Paralympics

For Cianna Murray and Michelle McKenna, it will be the experience of a lifetime, made more special by the chance to share it together. The two USask alumnae were selected to work as referees in the women’s hockey competition that begins today at this year’s Winter Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. This year will be Murray’s second Olympics and McKenna’s first, after working the world women’s hockey championship together last year in Czechia. It promises to be the latest in a list of memories to last a lifetime.

“We were both each other’s maid of honour at our weddings and now it is really cool to be going to the Olympics together as best friends,” said Murray, who earned education (2018) and kinesiology (2017) degrees at USask. “This will be my second Olympics and I have worked five world championships as well, and it is special every single time that we get to work international hockey. It is such prestigious hockey and the Olympics are such a surreal event to be a part of.”

McKenna is also looking forward to what promises to be the highlight of her career as an official, the culmination of years of dedication and determination.

“It is something you work your entire officiating career for and to see it come true, is incredible,” said McKenna, who earned an engineering degree (2013) at USask. “And to be there with Cianna makes it extra special to share it with someone you are so close with. To be there together and share those memories, it is something we will remember for the rest of our lives.”

Murray, who balances her time on the ice as a referee with her work as an elementary school teacher in the classroom, found out in February 2025 that she had been selected to work a second Olympics, from a pool of 60 officials from around the world who were evaluated for four years after the Beijing Winter Games.

“It’s been nice to know ahead of time to prepare, especially as a teacher,” said Murray. “This year we had the time to really buckle down and prepare for the Olympics. I have been primarily working in the Western Hockey League as well as the SJHL (Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League) and in the PWHL (Professional Women’s Hockey League), as well as the Canada West university league.”

Murray, who grew up in Cudworth, Sask., and now lives in Saskatoon, has found that working as a teacher and as a referee complement each other.

“I always make the joke that the two professions that I chose kind of go hand-in-hand,” Murray said. “Some days refereeing is no different than teaching, and some days teaching is no different than refereeing. There are actually a lot of skills that I use both in the classroom and on the ice that have really helped me to excel in both careers, whether that is conflict resolution, managing someone else’s emotions, and responding to different situations, I find teaching and refereeing very, very similar.”

McKenna grew up in Moose Jaw, Sask., before attending USask to earn her engineering degree and working six years for PCL Construction in Saskatoon before transferring to Regina. She was with her family when she was told that she had been selected to work the Winter Olympics.

“I found out when I was storm-stayed in Ottawa after a PWHL game,” she said. “I remember it was right after we went to the Olympic qualifiers and they called me and I had my husband and my daughter and my parents all in Ottawa with me, so I was able to share the exciting news with them.”

Like Murray, McKenna has worked junior hockey, university hockey and women’s professional hockey this season as she prepared for the Olympics.

“This the top level and the pinnacle of your career and what you strive to achieve,” she said. “You want to be out on the ice working the best possible hockey you can, with the best players in the world, and the Olympics is where that will happen. I am looking forward to that first game and skating out onto the ice and really taking in the atmosphere and just taking a few deep breaths and realizing that all that hard work paid off and I am ready to go.”

A former five-year member of the USask Huskies football team who competed in the 2002 Vanier Cup, Rush is ready for his third Olympics as a national team bobsleigh coach after racing in two Olympics as the pilot of four-man crew and winning a bronze medal in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

“I was part of a really strong organization that hosted an Olympic Games in Canada, so I had a home advantage going into those Games and I had amazing teammates and amazing staff around me,” said Rush, who was born in Saskatoon and raised in Humboldt, Sask. “I look back and think how lucky I was that everything came together for us. It is so hard to be on the podium in one race over four years, when everybody has that exact same goal. Everything has to line up perfect for you.”

Like many Saskatchewan kids, Rush grew up playing hockey before moving to the football field, and finally finding a home on the bobsleigh track where he won one Olympic medal and helped coach four other Olympic medallists.

“I always wanted to be a hockey player all my life and then football came along and became my sport, and I was also really interested in motorcycles and wakeboarding - X Games kind of stuff,” said Rush, who earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at USask in 2004. “When I was in university I was still thinking of playing in the CFL, but in the end, I could have maybe been a special teams player but I was never really going to have a career. And then this opportunity to try bobsleigh came around and it kind of mixed all of these things that I liked to do into one thing and I thought, goodness, I have been training for this all my life without even knowing it.”

While Rush cherishes making medal memories, it’s the atmosphere and aura of the Olympics that keeps him going back.

“It’s being there with the rest of Team Canada and all of the other athletes from all of the other nations that makes the Olympics so special,” he said. “You become part of a bigger Team Canada. It is pretty special.”

A physiotherapist with Huskie Health and for the USask football team, Stephanie Peppler will be working her first Paralympics next month as team physiotherapist for Canada’s snowboarding team. After working the world championships and World Cup circuit with Team Canada, she is looking forward to taking part in the spectacle that is the Olympics and Paralympics.

“I am a bit of an Olympics junkie and I will watch any sport that is being played at the Olympics,” she said. “I think for me, I am looking forward to the Parade of Nations the most. I was at worlds last year with the snowboard team and I was actually surprised at how emotion I felt, just doing that little bit of a walk at the opening of the worlds.”

Originally from Regina, Peppler earned kinesiology (2004) and physiotherapy (2007) degrees at USask, and joined the Regina Thunder Junior Football organization from 2007-2017 before returning to USask to work with Huskie football and Huskie Health. She has spent the past four years working with the national Paralympic snowboarding team and is looking forward to seeing them reach the pinnacle of the sport when the Paralympics begin on March 6.

“I am just excited to have worked with them through the four years leading up to the Games and getting to see them accomplish their goals,” she said. “As a kid, you have a dream to make it into the pinnacle of sport, which is what the Olympics and Paralympics are. As an athlete I never had the discipline to work hard enough to get there. And as a physio, it is something that you do aspire to. When I took on this role with the snowboard team, I knew this was possible and I am enjoying the journey.”

While Canada’s Paralympic sit-skiing team hasn’t been officially announced, USask graduate Kurt Oatway of Calgary is considered a strong candidate to be named to the team again after placing on the podium in a pair of World Cup races this season including a first-place finish for the 10th World Cup win of his career.

Oatway, who earned a Bachelor of Science degree at USask in 2010, won a gold medal in the men’s Super-G in the 2018 Paralympics in PyeongChang after placing fifth in the downhill at the 2014 Sochi Paralympics. He was poised to return to the Paralympics in Beijing in 2022 but suffered serious injuries in a crash on the course just weeks before the start of the Beijing Games. Oatway suffered a broken collarbone, torn ligaments, three broken ribs and a punctured lung at the world championships a month before the start of the Paralympics that year, but is healthy again and pushing for the podium.