Huskies hunting for national championship titles

For the chief athletics officer at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), the fall term is the start of what promises to be an exciting 2024/25 season for the university’s 15 Huskie Athletics programs.

“It’s the best time of the year! Everyone has tons of potential and high hopes,” said Chinn. “It’s going to be really interesting to see if we can get 15 out of 15 teams in the playoffs this year. That’s always the goal. All of our head coaches are back, so we are stable in lots of areas and we are steadily getting better in a couple of areas that we needed to.”

The Huskies season kicked off in late August with Huskies football and men’s soccer hitting the field for their first action of the new campaign. And once again this season, Huskie hopes are led by the perennial powerhouse Huskie women’s basketball team under 2024 U SPORTS coach of the year Lisa Thomaidis, who returns a talent-laden veteran squad that was ranked No.1 in the country last year and advanced all the way to the national championship game before coming up one shot short in a 70-67 loss to the Carleton Ravens.

“This group is kind of in their prime now,” said Thomaidis, who guided the Huskies to national titles in 2016 and 2020 and is a six-time Canada West conference coach of the year and three-time U SPORTS coach of the year as she begins her 26th season at the helm of USask’s women’s basketball program. “The core of the team played in the national championship tournament in their first year and then played in the national final in their third year. Now, going into their fourth year, many of them have played together and have that experience, they know what to expect and what the expectations are.”

“They are all one year older, stronger, better, and more experienced,” Thomaidis added. “There are going to be a lot of players capable of having big games and it is going to be fun to see how we are going to play this season … And we have a few new players coming in and we are excited to see how they fit in.”

Thomaidis is fresh off of leading the German women’s national team into the quarter-finals at the Paris Summer Games – the fourth consecutive Olympics for Thomaidis – and hopes to incorporate a couple of new international twists into the Huskies’ game this season.

“The things that I learn coaching internationally, I always try to bring something new back to our team that we can implement, so I think it is really good for me to be away, and for our players as well, and then we all come back and it’s a fresh start,” said Thomaidis, whose team posted a remarkable 19-1 record last season on the way to capturing the Canada West conference title. “You see the international trends of where the game is going and what players can do and how you can help their skill development, so there are a lot of things that you can bring back – different concepts offensively and defensively – and it’s always fun to try to implement some of those systems.”

The Huskies graduated fifth-year all-star and 2023 Canada West MVP and All-Canadian Carly Ahlstrom, but possess a veteran lineup led by the likes of All-Canadian Gage Grassick, with the new recruiting class featuring 6-foot-1 Swedish junior national team import Olivia Harm.

After exhibition action in Toronto and Vancouver, the Huskies will tip off the season in Calgary versus the Dinos on Nov. 1, with their home opener scheduled for Nov. 8 at USask’s Physical Activity Complex (PAC) versus the Manitoba Bisons.

The Huskie men’s basketball team, led by conference rookie of the year and U SPORTS all-rookie team standout Easton Thimm, is preparing to host Carleton, UBC and MacEwan in the annual Ron and Jane Graham Shootout tournament Sept. 26-28 at the PAC. Saskatchewan is in Calgary for the season opener on Nov. 1, before returning home to host Manitoba on Nov. 8 at the PAC.

“Men’s basketball is going to be fun to watch,” said Chinn. “The guys have been working hard this summer and (head coach) Jamie (Campbell) is going into his third year, and he continues to build a team that will be successful with his coaching style.”

Meanwhile, the Huskies football team under veteran head coach Scott Flory faces a crew of contenders in the ultra-competitive Canada West conference, standing in the way of a possible third trip to the Vanier Cup in four years for USask.

“Our football team is going to be strong again this year and I think they are going to see a cycle back to previous years with some key guys having another year of experience,” said Chinn. “This is going to be a big-play team, with some talented vets that are exciting to watch and we are looking for them to get deep into the playoffs again.”

The Huskies, who began the season ranked No.9 in the country, were upset 37-24 by the Bisons in Winnipeg in their season opener last Saturday, and hit the road again this Friday to face the Regina Rams at Mosaic Stadium to kick off this year’s U-Prairie Challenge head-to-head multi-sport rivalry series. The football home opener is Friday, Sept. 13 versus Calgary in the annual Homecoming Game where the Huskies will be looking for another sell out of over 10,000 fans at Griffiths Stadium in Nutrien Park.

On the pitch, the Huskies men’s soccer team (1-3 record) is off to Lethbridge this weekend to battle the Pronghorns, while USask’s women’s squad opens the regular season Saturday by hosting the MacEwan Griffins at Griffiths Stadium at 2 pm.

“We are watching the progression of our women’s soccer team. They only graduated one fifth-year last year and they brought home a bronze medal in the Canada West playoffs. They had a really successful off-season with some of them winning a national championship in Futsal (the indoor version of soccer), so I think there is a lot of confidence and belief in what they are capable of,” said Chinn. “Our men’s soccer team is young still, but they are coming together, and we have a new international goalie, so we are looking forward to seeing them get back into the playoff race.”

Over on the track, Huskies head coach Jason Reindl, who leads USask’s cross-country and track and field teams, has also returned from the Paris Olympics where he coached former Huskies national champion hurdler Michelle Harrison, and believes this year’s crop of Huskies has the potential to produce a few future Olympians as well.

“I definitely would like to say yes, with team members like Avery Pearson and Paige Willems doing extremely well in U SPORTS and the Canadian national scene and then we have up-and-comers like Michael Hussey, who is kind of our top recruit coming into the Huskies program,” said Reindl, who has coached the Huskie women’s track and field team to six straight Canada West team championships. “So we hope to continue to have future Olympians as part of our program.”

The Huskies’ cross-country running season starts Sept. 28 when they host the Dakota Classic at Dakota Dunes Resort, with the track and field indoor season getting underway with the PR Athletics First Chance Meet at the Saskatoon Field House on Dec. 7.

On the ice, the Huskie women’s hockey team is looking to rebuild and reload after hosting the national championship last season and advancing to the consolation final before graduating all-star players like defenceman Isabella Pozzi and Canada West player of the year Camryn Drever, who have both signed contracts to play professionally in Sweden.

“We lost such a great core of women’s hockey players who got to go out with hosting a national championship at home,” said Chinn. “But what those girls did is they built that foundation and the next group that (head coach) Steve (Kook) has coming up is going to follow that culture and they are going to be competitive.”

On the men’s side, Huskies head coach Brandin Cote has recruited seven new players, including a pair of Western Hockey League captains in former Saskatoon Blades scoring star Trevor Wong (who amassed 101 points last season) and former Kamloops Blazers blue-liner Logan Bairos of Saskatoon. Other key WHL recruits include homegrown Blades goaltender Ethan Chadwick and bruising Blazers teammate Ashton Ferster, a 6-foot-4 forward who is also from Saskatchewan.

“Brandin is starting to get his style of team around him and he has a couple of years of recruiting now and they are going to be strong,” said Chinn. “We’ve got a couple of strong recruits, and when you pair them with our core guys going into their third and fourth years, we’re expecting to see some really good hockey at Merlis Belsher Place this season.”

After playing an eight-game preseason schedule starting Saturday in Calgary, the Huskies will drop the puck on the regular season by hosting the Regina Cougars at Merlis Belsher Place on Oct. 4. USask’s women’s hockey squad will play seven exhibition games – including hosting the Huskie hockey tournament Sept. 20-22 – and opens up regular-season action on Oct. 4 in Regina.

Meanwhile, a veteran Huskie men’s volleyball squad – including imposing 6-foot-10, 230-pound Australian national team member Jacob Baird who made the U SPORTS all-rookie team – will look to serve up a spot in nationals after being knocked out in the conference quarter-finals last season, while the Huskie women’s volleyball team is hoping to get back into the playoff picture after missing the post-season in 2023/24.

“Men’s volleyball didn’t lose a lot of players to graduation and got some good playoff experience last season, so I think (head coach) Sean (McKay) is really looking to getting back to the national championships,” said Chinn. “Our women’s volleyball team, we have had some adjustments with our assistant coaches, so the program is evolving and (head coach) Mark (Dodds) is looking for them to be more competitive this year.”

The Huskie women’s team will open the season on Oct. 18 by hosting the Regina Cougars at the PAC, while the Huskie men’s squad has a matchup with the Mount Royal Cougars to open their season on Nov. 1 at the PAC.

Rounding out USask’s athletics teams, the always-talented Huskie men’s and women’s wrestling squads will hit the mat Oct. 18-19 in Calgary before hosting the Huskie Duals and Huskie Open Nov. 29-30. USask wrestlers also have the honour of hosting the Canada West conference championships on campus this season, scheduled for Feb. 8, 2025, at the Education Gym.