Canada’s sport absent at Humber college

When browsing through the list of varsity sports on the Humber Hawks website, one sport appears to be glaring omission from the line-up: hockey.

“Varsity hockey is one of those things that ran for a number or years, then it stopped running, then it came back,” explained Michael Kopinak, Humber’s Associate Director of Athletics and Recreation. “It’s done that a couple of times.”

Men’s varsity hockey hasn’t been a part of the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association since 2004 — a year that the Humber team won gold. For women, it hasn’t been active since 1986. The costs of equipment, travel, and facilities are cited as reasons that hockey is no longer a part of the OCAA.

“One of the detriments to hockey is the cost,” said Kopinak. “It is cost prohibitive, it’s the downfall.”

While varsity hockey is gone, students at Humber are still able to play competitively in individual tournaments in men’s and women’s extramural hockey.

“We have a team at North and Lakeshore, so there’s two teams,” said Jennifer O’Reilly, Recreation Coordinator at North campus.

Humber’s men’s extramural hockey team placed first in a tournament on Jan. 18 in the Seneca Tournament and the women’s team placed second at the Fleming Invitational Tournament the same day.

Tryouts for the teams take place in Sept. in which the coaches decide the rosters for the teams. Students that come during the winter semester are able to try out during the team’s first practice. The cost to try out is $5, and if selected to the team the cost is $300 for men and $225 for women.

The lack of hockey doesn’t mean varsity sports aren’t popular with Humber athletes.

“We get a lot of people out for basketball, soccer we get a ton out as well” said Kopinak. “its amazing to me how many cross country runners there are because that is so demanding and so challenging.”