BONNYVILLE – It has always been about the hockey for Austin Saint, a Bonnyville kid who came up through the ranks of Bonnyville Minor Hockey and is now making an impact in Canada’s university-level men’s hockey league, U Sports.
“I started playing hockey when I was four,” Saint told Lakeland This Week over the phone from Kingston, Ont. where he now lives, studies, and plays hockey for the Royal Military College.
“My brother is a year older than me, so my parents were pushing for us to play together. They threw me in a year early in the same year as him, and then up until my first-year bantam we played together,” he said, thinking back to when he put on his first team jersey.
The brothers continued to play on the same hockey team until each of them started to hone in on different things. In his early teen years, Saint doubled down on his commitment to the game of hockey and made the decision to see how far he could go with the sport.
In his 21 years, Saint has found himself on an upwards trajectory from Lakeland Panthers AA to the Lloydminster Rohan Rage AAA team before affiliating with his hometown’s Jr. A team, the Bonnyville Jr. A Pontiacs, at 16 years old.
“For me the only thing in my life that I really ever truly loved with all my heart has been hockey. And so, why not put everything I can into it and see what happens and maybe make a career out of it?... If you really love the game, you stick with it,” he said.
Saint continues to strive to make an impact on the ice with the aspiration to one day play at the highest possible level – the National Hockey League (NHL). “And that's getting closer and closer as I get older,” he said.
Now the homegrown kid is carving up the ice with the Paladins men's team. Saint’s first season has been described as “sensational.” He has scored 12 goals and seven assists so far.
On Nov. 25, Saint not only earned his first hat-trick of his U Sports career, but also put up the Paladins’ first hat-trick since 2018, said Saint, adding, “And it’s a tough league to score in.”
Initially Saint had hoped for a commitment to a high-end NCAA Division I school south of the border –but fate had other plans.
“As things finally got closer and closer to the nitty gritty, it became about what was going to be best for me in terms of playing... Talking to my advisor and talking to the people around me who helped me, the thing that they all said that was in common was ‘Go somewhere where you're going to play’.”
With astounding results in his rookie year, Saint clearly found his silver lining.
“Ice time has been huge this year for me and my development,” he acknowledged. “I'm glad it worked out the way it did because I went to a team where I'm getting the opportunity, I feel I deserve and worked for, and now it's paying off and everything's starting to fall into place.”
While Saint has continued to put in the work from a very young age, he recognizes he couldn’t have achieved success alone.
“I've been lucky to have a lot of people in my life who've been helping me and who have been put in my life at the right time steering me on the right path,” he said. “I'm getting closer and closer to where I want to go because of them.”
It takes a village
Looking back over his hockey career, Saint said it wasn’t just one coach that helped him but “a combination of all the coaches that I had and the adversity, the ups and downs.”
“As I grew up, everyone became that one coach, became that person in my life who brought me here,” he reflected. “I remember this phrase that said, ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’ and I think with hockey in particular, that's very true because nobody that I know who's gone anywhere in hockey has done it on their own.”
Referring to another Bonnyville Minor Hockey and Jr. A Pontiacs alumnus A.J. Macaulay, who now plays for University of Alaska Fairbanks, Saint said, “It wasn't just his parents raising him, it was everybody in the community... And as he and I grew older, and started playing for the Pontiacs, our parents were raising us, but now everyone in the community knew who we were, and it helped shape us.”
But of course, no one could take the spot of Saint’s father Bruce who has been his number one supporter and life-long coach.
“He’s that parent who will call me after the game and give me some constructive criticism,” Saint said. “I think he's happy where I'm at and I think he loves following along with it.”
The next generation
For youth coming up with the ambition to pursue hockey, the tenacious forward, who at times was referred to as “truculent” during his Jr. A career, has some advice.
“Just enjoy it and smile... Probably the biggest thing is to have fun with it, show up, play hard, go on the ice with intention like you want to win, and enjoy being out there because it doesn't last forever.”
