Westmanites relish chance to wear Maple Leaf

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This article was published 08/01/2025 (253 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A pair of Westman hockey players brought home a bronze medal and a lifetime of memories from the Junior A World Challenge in Alberta last month.

Defenceman Luke Lepper of Brandon and forward Dru Mushumanski of Rossburn were part of Team Canada West, which beat Canada East in the third-place game at the event in Camrose.

“It was pretty sweet,” Mushumanski said. “Any chance you get to play for a medal, if you win it, it’s definitely something you’ll have for the rest of your life and some memories that won’t go away. That was pretty awesome.”

Lepper agreed that the entire tournament was amazing.

“It was just incredible,” Lepper said. “We were treated like professionals. The staff were incredible to us, it was such a professional setting. It was a great experience all in all, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You dream of that as a kid.”

The United States beat Sweden 7-4 in the final to take gold.

Mushumanski, 18, who played last season with the Western Hockey League’s Regina Pats, was cut by the club on Sept. 26 after appearing in two games and returned to the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s Waywayseecappo Wolverines.

In 23 games, the five-foot-11, 167-pound right shot has six goals and 12 assists.

“It was tough for the first couple weeks of being back,” Mushumanski said. “There was a little bit of a depressing stage going from having everything in Regina and coming back and obviously the hockey is a little different and I had to change back. Recently I’ve picked up my stride a little bit and I’m slowly getting better. Hopefully the second half will go good.”

One advantage to playing with the Wolverines is that it’s just an eight-kilometre drive from Rossburn to the Waywayseecappo Arena Complex, so Mushumanski is able to live at home again.

Lepper, meanwhile, is in his second season with the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League’s Flin Flon Bombers. The 19-year-old blue-liner, a six-foot, 185-pound left shot from Brandon, has three goals and 21 assists in 28 games.

“It’s been really good,” Lepper said of his season. “Our team had a little bit of a rough start, starting 6-10 I believe, and then in the months of November and December we were 13-0-1 so we’ve really been clicking as of late. The guys are great, and I feel like we’re really confident going into the second half.”

TRYOUTS

The World Junior A Challenge wasn’t on either players’ radar prior to start their respective seasons. The annual event began in 2006 and is always held in Canada, although it’s not nearly as high profile as the world juniors.

“To start the season, honestly I wasn’t really thinking about it,” Lepper said. “As the season went on, my coach (Mike Reagan) talked to me about it and said it was a possibility. Things then played out. I had a good start to the season, and had an opportunity to try out for the team at the showcase and then the tryout in Calgary.”

It was the same for Mushumanski.

“I’d never really heard of it,” Mushumanski said. “I got back and started playing and got a call from (Wayway head coach) Landyn (Cochrane) and did my research a little bit from there.”

The team’s director of operations was Nigel Dube of Lampman, Sask., who is the general manager of the Lloydminster Bobcats of the AJHL, while the head coach was Flin Flon’s Reagan.

The first step of the tryout process was a showcase between the top 40 players from the Manitoba and Saskatchewan junior hockey leagues from Nov. 4 to 6 in Warman, which is just north of Saskatoon. The Team Canada West coaching staff put players through four practices and two games.

“The (practices) were pretty high tempo so it was definitely pretty tough,” Mushumanski said.

In the second game, Mushumanski had a pair of goals in a 4-2 MJHL victory, and he and Lepper were among the top 20 prospects invited to attend Canada West’s main camp in Calgary in late November.

That camp included a pair of games against Canada East’s squad.

The final team was summoned to a room at a Calgary hotel, where they learned they were moving on to the national event. That meant they would get the chance to wear the Maple Leaf on a jersey.

“It was definitely something every kid dreams of,” Mushumanski said. “It’s not the biggest stage like the world juniors or something like that, but obviously that chance to put on the Maple Leaf was something I’ll never forget.”

The final roster of two goalies, seven defencemen and 14 forwards included five players from the MJHL, four from the SJHL and 14 from the Alberta Junior Hockey League.

“It’s not very easy for coaches to be going off watching the players for a couple of games and some film from the season,” Mushumanski said. “They have to put some trust in you that you’re going to do your job. I think they did a good job of picking a team. I think we were all pretty close so that was pretty fun.”

Lepper found out he made the cut from Reagan, which was nice. “It was really cool,” Lepper said. “It was an easier transition because he’s our regular coach and a lot of our systems were the same, but obviously there were lots of other coaching staff members and the entire team was different so getting that opportunity to play with a lot of other players was unique.”

Mushumanski knew Jackson Kostiuk of the Steinbach Pistons and Marlen Edwards of the Northern Manitoba Blizzard, and had played against several others. Lepper didn’t know anyone on the team other than his Flin Flon teammate Koen Senft, although he had skated against the other MJHL players.

Lepper and Mushumanski played against each other in the Manitoba U18 AAA Hockey League and the Wendy’s Summer Hockey League, but had never skated together.

“You kind of get your own perspective on other players when you play against them, and when you get to be on their team, he’s a completely different guy than what you think when they’re on the other team,” Lepper noted.

TOURNAMENT

The event couldn’t have started much worse for Canada West. They fell 10-2 to Sweden on Dec. 9, and Mushumanski suffered a lower-body injury, which limited his ability to contribute for the rest of the tournament.

A day later, the team was beaten 6-1 by Canada East, with Lepper scoring the lone goal.

“We were on the power play and I was at the top,” Lepper said. “I gave it to the flank, and we did a switch and I opened up for a one-timer and got a nice one-timer pass and buried it.”

“It wasn’t a meaningful goal,” he added. “There were only five seconds left in the game and we were down by quite a few goals but just to be able to score at that level in that tournament, I’ll never forget that. It means so much to me.”

They ended the round-robin with a 9-0 trouncing by the United States.

“The round-robin didn’t really go our way but we were playing against really good teams,” Mushumanski said. “The Sweden team had been playing together for a bit and obviously the U.S.A., they’ve all committed to some of the best schools you can to. I think for us, we had to regroup because we lost our three round-robin games so that wasn’t great.”

Despite playing on a team of players who didn’t know each other well or have the benefit of an established leadership group, Lepper said the squad never got down despite being outscored 25-3 in the round-robin.

“Everyone on their own club teams had large roles on the power play and whatever,” Lepper said. “There was a set leadership group, but honestly, I saw everyone as leaders in that group. Everyone was a great guy and we got along great, and that really helped us throughout the tournament.”

Even though it was a tough start, Mushumanski said it was still an exceptional experience to soak in.

“It was pretty sweet,” Mushumanski said. “The atmosphere in the Camrose rink, it was basically pretty packed up for most of our games. Honestly, we got treated pretty damn good there so that was pretty nice.”

PLAYOFFS

Since all four teams made the playoffs, Team West had new life after the round-robin ended.

But West was blanked 6-0 by Sweden in the semifinals, with East getting edged 3-2 by the Americans to set up an all-Canadian bronze-medal game.

“In the first few tournament games, it was a little rough for us, going 0-4 to start,” Lepper said. “As the tournament went on, I thought we got a lot better defensively and systems-wise. Playing against Team USA and Team Sweden — Team Sweden has played together for quite a few years and so they know each other and how they work together — but it was definitely a struggle to start getting to know each other and how each other play but as the tournament went on we got a lot more chemistry and gelled together.”

But even the bronze-medal game was going to be an uphill battle.

East had beaten West in the two pre-tournament games and then during the round-robin as well.

“There were a lot of nerves, but at the end of the day, we were playing Canada East and we had already played them twice in Calgary for the tryouts and once in the round-robin, so I think everyone was ready,” Lepper said. “We knew who we were going up against and we were able to get it done.”

In the third-place game, the teams were tied 1-1 when Flin Flon forward Koen Senft of Regina scored twice in the second period to give West a 3-1 lead after 40 minutes. After Calgary Canucks forward Jack Plandowski of Halifax made it 4-1, Camrose Kodiaks forward Garrett Thom — who subsequently had a three-game tryout with the Western Hockey League’s Brandon Wheat Kings — scored the final goal in a 5-2 West victory.

“Nobody really expected us to win a game there and we proved them wrong by coming out of there with a bronze medal,” Mushumanski said. “That’s pretty awesome.”

As it turned out, beating Canada East once was all they needed.

“That’s what our coaches joked about after the tournament was over,” Lepper said. “At least we won the most important game.”

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