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Steven Noble
Editor, Internal Publications
p. 403.440.5692
e-mail: snoble@mtroyal.ca

Fred Cheney
Media Relations Officer
p. 403.440.5195
e-mail: fcheney@mtroyal.ca

 

Professor Gary Koroluk was in his usual position in the stands when his son, Carey scored his first goal of the season.

The difference was that Carey, a first-year student here, was wearing a Cougars’ jersey.

“I never thought 38 years ago I’d have a child let alone see him playing for the Cougars,” says Gary chuckling at how things have turned out.

This is only Carey Koruluk's first year at Mount Royal, but Mount Royal has been in the family for nearly 40 years.

Gary is a professor within the physical education stream in the University Transfer program. Over his nearly 40 years at Mount Royal he has been an avid supporter of the Cougars’ athletic program.

Now he has a new reason to cheer for the blue and white.

Cougars veteran sniper Coleton Thielmann says Carey has made a quick adjustment to Laforest's style of play despite being a rooke.

"He has been a big impact on and off the ice with us," Thielmann says.

"As a rookie, he's doing a good job of learning the systems of our team, he's also contributing were we need him; creating energy, penalty killing, hitting, and even scoring some important goals.

"He knows what he needs to do out there which can sometimes be hard to grasp, but  he's got a great head on his shoulders and he's a very important part of our team."

After three years of playing Jr. A hockey with the Calgary Royals and then the Olds Grizzlies, Gary’s son Carey decided to join his father and play for the Cougars while studying at Mount Royal.

“It’s pretty neat to have him here,” Gary says. “Camrose, SAIT and some other schools were interested too. It would have killed me if he’d played for SAIT.”

Not only is Gary loyal to his students, many of whom have played for Cougars’ teams over the years, he also has ties as the former men’s and women’s volleyball coach.

So when he saw Carey picking up the puck in the offensive zone with only one player between him and the goalie, it was somewhat surreal.

When Carey exploded past the Augustana player and cut into the middle of the zone before snapping a backhand shot past the goalie to break open a 2-2 tie it was more than surreal, it was flat out exciting.

Carey’s goal gave the Cougars a lead in what would ultimately be another victory in what has turned out to be an extremely successful regular season for the Cougars so far.

The Cougars sit atop the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference with a glistening 11-1-1 record after knocking off arch-rival and reigning ACAC champion SAIT at the Centennial Arena last weekend.

It had been a lot of years since Gary had roused his son in the chilly, dark morning hours of his weekends and packed him in the family van with a shoulder bag bulging with hockey gear, before heading for a practice, game or tournament at some arena.

It has been a lot of years since Gary put his five-year-old son in the Cougars’ hockey camp, confident it would help his son’s development.

Looking back on those days, even Carey is a little shocked at how everything has come together.

“I’d be five or six-years-old and Dad would put me in the Cougars’ camps,” says Carey. “I remember learning from the older guys in Cougars’ jerseys but I never thought I’d put on that jersey one day. It’s been pretty cool.”

The decision to become a Cougar

As Carey entered his final year of junior eligibility last fall he began to put his future ambitions under a magnifying glass.

At that point, his future as a Mount Royal Cougar was hardly a done deal.

The final year of junior hockey is a major transition point in a hockey player’s career trajectory.

For most players it’s a time when they want to rack up enough points to draw the attention of NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) scouts in order to earn a scholarship to play in the American collegiate league.

Carey’s year was even more intense because he’d just joined a new organization.

Yet, the season in Olds didn’t go quite as planned.

His new coach wanted him to change his game up and go from being a dangerous offensive threat to a defense-first, shut down guy.

That request was a bitter pill to swallow at first because it was something completely different than Carey had ever been asked to do. It also would pretty much guarantee the NCAA scouts would pass him over.

Ironically it opened the door to play with one of the top collegiate teams in Canada — in the same arena he used to attend hockey camps as a pint-sized pee wee.

As he mulled his options this past summer and met with respective post-secondary coaches, Mount Royal’s head coach, Jean Laforest told him he wanted him because of his defensive prowess.

While he had the opportunity to play just about anywhere he wanted in Alberta, he really wanted to get back to Calgary and no other schools offered the combination of a such high quality athletic and academic programs.

Mount Royal’s hockey team was already loaded with firepower so Laforest didn’t need another sniper. But he did tell Koroluk he liked his ability to play at both ends of the ice and to kill penalties.

“Without a doubt it made me a better hockey player learning that checking aspect of the game that I never really had the chance to focus on before,” says Carey.

“I benefitted a lot from it as a person as well, I definitely matured over the last year and took on the role in an eager way where at the beginning I was bitter about it.

“Things worked out for the best in the long run because I’m pretty happy here at Mount Royal and we have a great team, and the academic programs here are some of the best around.”

Carey will apply to enter the Bissett School of Business in the second semester.

He hopes that if he continues to score goals for Mount Royal on the ice, Mount Royal will help him reach his personal goals off the ice.

Either way, one thing’s sure, whether in a tie or a jersey, Carey and Gary couldn’t be happier with Carey’s decision to come to Mount Royal.

— Steven Noble, Nov. 26, 2009