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Our View: Saints alive!

The Selkirk College Saints celebrated their third consecutive BC Intercollegiate Hockey League championship yesterday.

The Selkirk College Saints celebrated their third consecutive BC Intercollegiate Hockey League championship yesterday, and let us be only the latest of many to congratulate them.

It was remarkable when the Saints won their first championship, going from perpetual cellar dwellers to contenders in a single season, thanks in large part to the brilliant recruiting of former coach Jeff Dubois.

They repeated that success the following year, instilling pride in everyone who attends or works at the college throughout the West Kootenay.

But with the departure of Dubois to coach the Creston Valley Thunder Cats of the KIJHL, it was an open question whether his successor Alex Evin could keep up the team’s success — although it certainly boded well that a core of key players returned from the previous two seasons.

The Saints battled adversity at times before finishing a solid second in the regular-season standings behind Trinity Western University. But that just made their championship even sweeter.

The Saints are the first team in the league’s history to win three titles in a row — no small achievement for a school whose enrollment is dwarfed by every other member of the league.

Well done, Saints. You’ve proved Selkirk College can compete on a provincial level, thrilled us with your on-ice performance, and given us reason to look forward to next season.

 

For the record

Due to an editing error, the caption that accompanied Walter Volovsek’s Retrospective last week suggested the photo of the Robson ferry was taken in 1948. In fact, it was taken in the 1950s.