Four years after a bronze-medal performance at the 2019 FISU Winter World University Games in Russia, Canada is ready to chase gold and a Barrie boy will be minding the blue-line this time around.
On Dec. 14, USPORTS announced the 23 student-athletes who will wear the maple leaf for the men’s hockey team at the 2023 event in Lake Placid, N.Y. The roster is composed of players from Canadian universities and includes Barrie native Matt Brassard.
Brassard, 24, attends the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI) and is the country’s leading scorer among defencemen with 23 points in 18 games.
The former Barrie Colts blue-liner (2015-16) spoke to BarrieToday from New York while he was getting ready for practice.
“This is such a huge honour. I have been part of many big games in my life, but I haven’t yet had the privilege to wear the jersey for my country,” Brassard said. “I just want to go out and perform to the best of my abilities and work together with my team to win gold.”
The 31st edition of the FISU Games began Wednesday and ends with the championship game on Jan. 22. Canada’s first game is today (Jan. 12) against Ukraine and, over the following six days, they will play four more times, taking on Sweden, Japan, Latvia, and Czechia.
“There are teams from all over the world, so it's a really good opportunity to see what competition is like everywhere else,” Brassard said. “It will take a lot of dedication in practice and focus on the game in hand.”
Brassard said he has been playing hockey since he was very young and got to live out a dream when he was drafted by his hometown Barrie Colts in 2015.
“I loved playing for my hometown at the junior level and, with Barrie being such a hockey town, I’ve taken that love of the game with me everywhere I go,” he said.
After a couple seasons patrolling the blue-line in Barrie, he also had stints with the Oshawa Generals and the Niagara IceDogs, amassing 143 points in 222 OHL games before finishing his junior hockey career.
His offensive prowess from the back end led to Brassard being selected by the Vancouver Canucks in the seventh round (188th overall) of the 2017 NHL Entry Draft. He then played 14 games of professional hockey with the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Komets and the Wichita (Kan.) Thunder of the ECHL in 2019-20, collecting one goal and two assists, before pursuing his post-secondary education at UPEI.
The preliminary round of the FISU Winter World University Games will be played in Canton, N.Y., before moving to the Lake Placid Olympic Center for the medal round.
For fans who are up on their hockey history, the location should be a familiar one as the site of the Miracle On Ice, which saw the young, upstart Americans defeat the legendary Soviet Union squad in 1980.
Brassard, who is the son of Barrie-Innisfil MP John Brassard, said the venue is not lost on him and he knows what it means to play on the historic hockey grounds.
“It's an unbelievable spot for hockey; there's so much history there," he said. "(The Miracle On Ice) happened before I was born, but I’ve watched the movie Miracle many times and it would be great to get to the medal rounds as it is, but to play there and do it makes it even bigger."
The tournament happens every four years. At the 2019 FISU Winter World University Games, Canada earned bronze with a 3-0 win over Kazakhstan in the consolation final.
For more information and to follow results, head to the FISU website by clicking here.
