Memories of silver and gold
Canadrill captain enjoys memorable hockey tournaments
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
RANKIN INLET
Pujjuut Kusugak sat back, relaxed and enjoyed a pair of great hockey memories upon his return to Rankin Inlet earlier this month.
Kusugak's month of special puck memories began by captaining the Canadrill team to the Toonik Tyme Cup senior men's hockey championship in Iqaluit.
From there, it was off to Mississauga, Ont., to watch his son, Qaritaq Kusugak, perform on the Team North squad that captured silver at the annual National Aboriginal Hockey Championships.
Four others from Rankin Inlet, Stephane Nukapiak, Jaden Sigurdson, Tyler Sabourin and Seth Ningeongan, also suited-up for the Northern squad, along with two players from Iqaluit.
It was the first time in the Northern squad's 12-year history at the event it left with a medal.
The team, comprised of players from Nunavut, the NWT and the Yukon, needed overtime to defeat heavily-favoured Ontario 5-4 in the semifinal, before losing the championship game 3-0 to B.C.
Pujjuut, who coached Team Nunavut with Cody Dean and Frank Tootoo about 10 years ago at the event, said their squad was ranked 10th coming into the event and managed to finish seventh.
He said, as far as knows, that was the highest finish for a Northern team until this year.
"This was a huge leap forward for Team North," said Pujjuut.
"Those guys making the final was a shock to the hockey world.
"A bit of it may have been catching lightning in a bottle because the Team North goalie from the Yukon was simply amazing, and I'd never seen a goalie carry a team like that before.
"But, our boys from the North are exposed to a lot of different levels of hockey these days, and that's really helped the players from here to the point where their hockey IQ is way higher than it was, say, 15 or 20 years ago."
Pujjuut said the arena in Mississauga was kept very busy during the week-long tournament from May 2-7.
He said more-and-more fans began cheering for Team North as the squad advanced to the final.
"We had about eight or 10, I'd say, fans from Nunavut at the tournament, counting Sam Tutanuak of Rankin, who was part of Team North, and Mikki Adams of Rankin, who was one of the assistant coaches.
"The crowds were pretty good during the week, and the arena was a lot of fun for the semifinal and final."
Kusugak said the aboriginal championships were a nice followup to winning the Toonik Tyme title.
He said having two teams made-up of mostly Rankin Inlet players meet in the final was a nice bonus.
"Both Iqaluit teams were pretty strong; making it all the way to the semifinals before losing to us (Canadrill) and the Rankin team.
"The other Rankin team had guys from Naujaat with them and they played really well together.
"It really helped the players in the A Division - with the Rankin league going to A and B divisions this year - because they played at such a high level of hockey for most of the year.
"You look at a young guy like Sidney Nichol, who we took to Iqaluit with us, and you can tell he's improved quite a lot this year because of playing in that Rankin A Division all season."
