Dylan Willick was a 20 year old in his final season with the Kamloops Blazers and was nursing a broken leg when he received the news he had been named team captain.
“(There was) a lot of excitement going through me getting ready to come back and play and then also getting honoured with a letter on my jersey like that,” Willick said. “For me at the time it made me all the more excited to get back playing at the level I had been before I broke my leg.”
Willick returned to the lineup with a new ‘C’ on his jersey and finished the season with 16 goals and 30 points, leading the Blazers to a third place finish in the Western Conference in the 2012-13 season.
“It means a lot, it’s such a historic franchise,” the Prince George native said. “A little bit of extra expectation goes over yourself, but also you didn’t want to change anything because you earn it from your teammates for being who you are.”
That year, Willick and the Blazers defeated the Victoria Royals in the first round and swept the Kelowna Rockets before losing in five games to the Portland Winter Hawks.
It marked the first time since 1996 that the Blazers had advanced past the first round of the playoffs in two consecutive seasons.
The previous season, Willick was a part of the most successful Blazers team in over a decade. They captured the B.C. Division title before losing a suspense-filled seven game series to Portland in the second round.
“The biggest moment I can remember was game six against Portland in the second round of my second-last season in 2012,” Willick said.
That game was the infamous third-period comeback which saw the Blazers score five goals in the final frame, including a point shot from Bronson Maschmeyer, to send the series back to Portland for game seven.
“The atmosphere in the crowd and the entire experience from start to finish was something you can’t forget,” Willick recalled. “You don’t win games, series, and seasons like that without having a really tight group of fellas, and to me even to this day it’s one of the tightest groups that I can say I played on.”
Now, Willick is lacing up the skates for the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds, the most successful CIS team in Atlantic Canada.
The Varsity Reds lost in the final of the national championship last season to the University of Alberta Golden Bears. UNB has won five national titles in teams history, the most of any Atlantic team, as well as four of the past five AUS championships as the best team in the Atlantic.
“I’ve been really fortunate with the team that I managed to get on with that we continue to have success, even if we haven’t quite captured the ultimate goal yet,” Willick said.
In addition to playing hockey, Willick is also pursuing a degree in computer science, which he hopes to complete in four years. He was named an academic all-Canadian in each of his first two CIS seasons.
“The fact you aren’t 100 per cent focused on hockey anymore like you were in junior is a bit of an adjustment, but it’s been a great experience overall,” he said. “So far, so good. That’s a big part thanks to the way our team is run and organized. A little bit different bus rides home sometimes. Instead of staying up all night watching movies, a lot of guys flip on their laptops, read from textbooks, and do homework.”
Willick moved to Canada’s east coast with his girlfriend for a chance to experience life in a different part of Canada, but they hope to move back west once school is finished to be closer to family.
“I was going to spend four years of my life going to university and playing hockey, it felt like an awesome time to go see a different side of Canada and experience what it’s like to live out east,” Willick said. “I’m hoping to graduate in four years and if nothing comes up professionally hockey-wise then we’ll come back out west and try and find a job and try and make lives out west.”
As far as hockey is concerned, Willick has become one of the veterans and a leader on the team in his third season.
He had to battle for playing time in his first season, and on multiple occasions was left out of the lineup. He finished the year with six points in 24 games.
Last season he saw more playing time and collected 14 points in 28 games.
“Convenience-wise I was the only right-handed centreman for the past two years so I was out there for a lot of faceoffs. Back to the two-way forward, penalty-killing type which has been my M.O. for the most part,” Willick said.
The team has yet to name the captain and alternates for the upcoming season, but Willick hopes it is a role he can once again take on.
“You kind of hope that the guys recognize it and I can maybe get myself back into that and if not, just keep mentoring the young guys and pushing forward as a unit,” he said.
Willick and the Varsity Reds will open the season on October 10th as they will look to be at the 2016 CIS University Cup in Halifax in March.
A History of Blazers Captains:
