Huskies forward Derek Hulak led the Canada West in points last year.

The Huskies men’s hockey team will enter the 2012-13 season with big expectations and a healthy combination of skill and experience.

The squad has 20 returning players from last year’s team, which won the Canada West championship— a title that the club hopes to win again this year. Among those returning is forward Derek Hulak, who was only in his second year of eligibility last season when he lit up the league with 11 goals and 33 assists, earning the Dave ‘Sweeney’ Schriner Trophy for leading point producer in the Canada West conference.

Hulak, a third-year business student, played for the Saskatoon Blades in the Western Hockey League from 2007-10 before joining the Huskies.

Dogs head coach Dave Adolph is happy to have the dynamic forward returning to the lineup this season.

“He is the kind of player that prepares hard, is in fantastic shape and is a high average student too. It’s a luxury to have someone like that,” Adolph said.

Just behind Hulak in last year’s conference points race were fellow Huskies Kyle Bortis and Kyle Ross. Together the three players combined for 116 points in 28 contests last season, making the trio the most potent offensive line in all Canadian Interuniversity Sport hockey.

Ross completed his eligibility at the end of last season, leaving Bortis and Hulak looking for a new linemate to complement their skills. Ross’s departure also left the Dogs looking for a new captain.

Announced only two days prior to the team’s first pre-season tilt, this year’s captain will be Brennan Bosch. Bosch is a fourth-year pharmacy student who previously played with the Medicine Hat Tigers where he won a WHL championship with the club in 2006. Hulak, along with fellow forwards Chris Durand and Andrew Bailey will assist Bosch as alternate captains of the team.

This season the Dogs will be hosting the CIS men’s University Cup at Credit Union Centre in Saskatoon March 14-17, 2013. The national tournament welcomes only the best teams from each conference in the CIS to come together in a bid to determine the top team in the country.

By hosting the University Cup in both 2013 and 2014 the Huskies are given an automatic berth into the year end tournament. Despite this, however, Hulak says the team’s focus is still winning the Canada West conference.

“Although we’re hosting nationals we want to make it there the right way, by winning our league,” Hulak said. “We don’t want to take any short cuts. We want to earn everything we get. That mentality has been in camp right off the bat.”

The path to repeating as conference champions will be harder this year. With Mount Royal University entering the league this season the standard of competition has been bumped up another notch, Adolph explained.

“We expect Mount Royal to be a very stern test for us,” he said. “This season I think there are six teams that could win our league at any one time.”

The Dogs started pre-season play Sept. 14 in a non-conference tournament hosted by the Regina Cougars. The Huskies downed the University of Manitoba 5-2 in their opening match and defeated the Cougars 5-1 Sept. 16.

The Huskies hope their dominance continues in Regina for  their regular season openers when they play back-to-back matches in the Cougars arena Sept. 28 and 29.

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File Photo: Pete Yee