Road to the 2023 Centennial Cup: Battlefords North Stars

Rodney MacArthur woke as much as a pleasing shock to start his May 24.

He acquired an electronic mail containing the 2022-23 schedule for the Union College
males’s hockey workforce.

The prospect of venturing right down to Schenectady, New York, this autumn to
watch his youngest son Colby’s freshman NCAA season fills the hockey dad
with enthusiasm.

“It shall be an ideal step as it is a degree within the recreation he has by no means
performed,” says Rodney. “Colby thinks he’s as much as the problem, and so do
we. We’re so excited, and we plan on taking journeys to New York to help
him.”

Conversations between Rodney and Colby in regards to the latter’s new, thrilling
chapter of his hockey profession will undoubtedly happen within the days to
come.

Right now, the 20-year-old’s sole focus helps the Summerside Western
Capitals to nationwide glory on the 2022 Centennial Cup, introduced by Tim
Hortons, in Estevan, Sask.

“I’m not looking past the two weeks of this competition,” says Colby, who
led the Maritime Hockey League (MHL) with 57 assists and 75 factors throughout
the common season. “We are at nationals to win it. My household is right here to
help me, and all of the conversations are about hockey and the way I’m
enjoying.”

Colby’s preliminary-round efficiency signifies the perspective of
laser-focused depth is translating to the ice on the large stage. He
registered two targets and 4 assists for a team-leading six factors in 4
video games and was named the event’s most sportsmanlike participant. His
additional time aim in a 4-3 resolution over the Ottawa Jr. Senators on Wednesday
afternoon vaulted his squad right into a quarterfinal showdown towards Collège
Français de Longueuil.

One of the driving forces fueling the younger man’s point-producing prowess
and clutch-play performances is confidence that hockey excellence is within the
MacArthur household DNA.

Rodney and older brother Brodie, 23, attained one and two league scoring
titles, respectively, throughout their Junior A careers on P.E.I. Rodney, now
the principal of Queen Elizabeth Elementary School in Kensington, captured
the Island Junior Hockey League (IJHL) factors crown in 1988-89 with the
Charlottetown Abbies. Suiting up for Summerside, Brodie received the MHL scoring
race in 2018-19 (110 factors) and 2019-20 (108 factors). His 357 profession
factors in 196 video games are essentially the most in league historical past.

Brodie, enjoying for the University of Prince Edward Island since 2020, has
a pass-first mentality like his youthful brother – 215 of his factors for the
Western Capitals had been assists.

Supporting Colby from house in P.E.I through the Centennial Cup, Brodie
shares how Rodney instilled inside his sons a want to play unselfish,
two-way hockey.

“He coached us each rising up and at any time when there have been video games when the rating
was out of hand, he would ask us to finish three passes earlier than making an attempt
to attain. That is the place that pass-first play actually first began.”

Colby says he appreciates Rodney’s dedication to assist he and Colby elevate
their craft, which was on show from their earliest yard rink days.

“He put us by means of drills that I don’t suppose many children would have been
doing at 4 or 5 years outdated like triangle stickhandling and utilizing
angles and boards as a playmaker. He wished the most effective for us. I couldn’t
have requested for a greater father.”

Like particular person accolades, workforce championships evidently magnetize in the direction of
the MacArthur brothers, too. Colby has received 9 straight league titles
courting again to his U11 days, and Brodie accrued a slew of championships,
together with first place on the 2012 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey
Tournament.

Sibling yard rink battles nurtured Colby and Brodie’s tenacity.

“He’s the reason I am so competitive,” says Colby. “Even once I was youthful
and 5 inches shorter, he would nonetheless hit me as exhausting as he might once we
battled within the nook. We pushed one another to be stronger.”

Now, in maturity, Colby has the peak benefit at 6-foot-3, three inches
taller than Brodie and greater than Rodney, too. He has capitalized on his
towering body to play a extra bodily model of hockey than his father and
brother.

Rodney is happy with the participant Colby has grow to be.

“I’d say he was a greater skater, smoother than I used to be. And I’d say
he was a greater all-around participant too. He is nice at each ends and is
robust on faceoffs.”

Brodie says his brother’s trajectory as a participant continues to development upward.

“Every 12 months he performs he will get higher. He’s at all times had good hockey talent,
imaginative and prescient, a want to win and the flexibility to work exhausting. He has improved on
his shot, velocity and total recreation. I count on him to maintain going that means.”

Under the steerage of head coach Billy McGuigan, who was Brodie’s coach and
the stick boy for Rodney’s Abbies, Colby will try and grow to be a MacArthur
pioneer. He would grow to be the primary member of his household to win Canada’s
National Junior A Championship.

He has the help of Rodney, Brodie, mom Kim and older sister Brooke as
he pursues this feat.