From Tri-City News

By Mario Bartel

The weather for Minot, N.D. is forecast to be -6 C, with snow expected on Thursday, but Wyatt Waselenchuk has found his comfort zone.

The former goalie for the Port Moody Panthers of the Pacific Junior Hockey League has settled into a coaching gig at Minot State University after bouncing around various junior programs that included two stops with the Panthers — where he’s still listed as the fourth-winningest goalie of the team — a couple of seasons in the BC Hockey League and another in Nipawin, Sask.

Eventually, Waselenchuk wound his way to Minot, a town of 50,000 about 90 minutes from the Saskatchewan border, where the head coach of the Minot State Beavers, Wade Regier, took him under his wing.

Together, they found success. In 2013 Waselenchuk backstopped the Beavers to an [ACHA Div. I] national championship and he became the only player in the team’s history to be named the American Collegiate Hockey Association’s player of the year.

But more importantly, Waselenchuk said, he found his calling. After graduating in 2014, he started his own goaltending school, Accel, and began guiding young puckstoppers in the Minot youth hockey association, the Minot Minotaurs in the North American Hockey League and, of course, the Beavers.

Waselenchuk said his own bumpy ride through hockey’s hinterlands uniquely prepared him to pass on his experiences and knowledge to future generations.

“I don’t think I really understood and figured the game out until I was 22 years-old,” Waselenchuk said, adding he never received formal coaching until he played Midget in Port Moody and Major Midget with the Northeast Chiefs under the tutelage of Port Coquitlam’s Doneau Menard.

Menard’s lessons about hard work and perseverance stuck with Waselenchuk even as his hockey aspirations struggled for traction.

“Hockey is so much more than playing the game,” Waselenchuk said. “It teaches life lessons and skills that you can carry with you the rest of your life.”

Waselenchuk said the small, non-varsity hockey program at Minot State gave him the stability and assurance he’d been seeking his whole hockey journey. The team plays in a brand new arena, drawing 1,500 fans a game. It’s funded through the school’s student activity committee, donations and corporate sponsorship. Most of its players are recruited from small prairie towns in Saskatchewan and Manitoba who come to the school because it’s one of the cheapest public universities in America.

Waselenchuk said the vibrant hockey community in Minot, where he works with about 24 goalies a week, more than makes up for the often frigid temperatures that will likely dip to 20 degrees below zero or colder as winter takes hold.

“You dress a little warmer, and your car has to have remote start,” he said. “It feels like hockey season.”

(Originally published at https://www.tricitynews.com/sports/ex-panther-finds-home-in-cold-climes-1.23553949)