The Leader-Post from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada • AS9

SPORTS Being named the Regina player of the year is no small feat for Ryker Evans. de nitely an honour and very grateful to be chosen for that the 19-year-old defenceman says from his home in Calgary. I rst came into camp, I was a small guy, and I put a lot of ort in during the -season to grow and to become the player I am Evans was listed at 5-foot-3 and 110 pounds when the Pats selected him in the 10th round (209th overall) of the 2016 bantam draft. think I was quite 110 pounds, but they gave it to the 6-foot-0, 191-pounder says with a chuckle. was probably triple digits, but 110 pounds was de nitely big for me back So was merely being drafted, considering his modest dimensions.

was pretty small, so I know if people were going to overlook me for that, but we all gured it Evans recalls. have an eating kind of thing. gluten-free, so I getting the proper nutrients. why I was so small. Grade 5, I was diagnosed with celiac (disease).

It was pretty painful growing up, because I really getting the nutrients from everything I ate. It was always gut rot and u-like symptoms, so it was tough. we gured it out at a young age, so it was easy to bounce back from that and start Eventually. growth spurt) was after I got notes Evans, a veteran of three WHL seasons. my rst year of midget, I was 5-6.

Progressively, throughout midget and going into my rst year with the Pats, I grew a bit more each year. summer, it was always a treat to see people compliment me on how much bigger I was getting. kind of what I do each summer. I go in and try to get a bit stronger and a bit bigger and hopefully people notice growth as a player has also been noted. During the recently completed WHL season the Pats played 24 games at the Brandt Centre, the East hub facility he registered three goals and 28 points.

Evans nished in a tie for the scoring lead with 15-year- old phenom Connor Bedard, who had 12 goals and 16 assists in 15 games before joining what turned out to be a gold-medal-winning Canadian team for the IIHF world under-18 hockey championship. Despite the shortened schedule, Evans nearly matched the 31 points he registered in 63 games with the 2019-20 Pats. He took some time to savour the progress on Monday, when he formally received player-of- the-year honours. kind of looked back on pictures of when I was smaller, and I really believe that I was there and that come to be this bigger boy now, with the strength gained and the place that at re ects Evans, who was also named the top defenceman and most popular player. kind of cool to look back and see where come from.

worked every day and pushed myself through di erent things just to grow. good to see. like a little twitter.com/robvanstone Evans is enjoying the taste of success Defenceman Ryker Evans was named the Regina player of the year on Monday. KEITH HERSHMILLER ROB VANSTONE KEVIN MITCHELL SASKATOON Fred Sasakamoose has a book, a statue and a day all of them intersecting on Tuesday, when he was widely honoured for his contributions to Saskatchewan life. Sasakamoose, the rst treaty Indian to play in the NHL (11 games with the Chicago Blackhawks in 1953-54), died in November after getting COVID-19.

Tuesday was declared Fred Sa- sakamoose Day by the civic and provincial governments in Saskatoon and Saskatchewan respectively. His memoirs, entitled Me were released that same day by Penguin Random House. Details about the compo- sition of a statue, to be placed outside SaskTel Centre, were released during a Facebook event. always contemplated what would happen when Fred Sasaka- moose passes son, Neil Sasakamoose, said Tuesday. contemplated it in my mind.

What would it look like? What would we do, as people? The non- First Nations people came out really good for him. They want to honour him, and I really enjoy that part. Our own First Nations people, we do honorings di erently. But for non-First Nations people to want to honour him, even a better message to me as a son, and to my mother and to our family. It means a lot to us.

I just hope people take that, and learn to apply it in their own Sasakamoose, who spoke openly late in life about the abuse he endured at a residential school in Duck Lake, followed his brief NHL career with several more seasons of hockey, including many at the senior level in Saskatchewan. He took pride being a role model for Indigenous youth. During the Facebook event on Tuesday, a parade of people spoke glowingly of Sasakamoose and his legacy. A statue has been formally approved for SaskTel Centre, which is already the site of one honouring hockey great Gordie Howe. It will show Sasakamoose in his hockey prime, and Neil says it be an easy thing to visit for the rst time.

going to take me a long time to go see he said. is a powerful emotion. why, as First Nations people, we look at pictures. We say the name. We do that for one full year.

taken away; the clothes, all the items, the pictures, and we try not to speak too much about it. belief is that a year later, when strong enough to start looking at pictures and talking about them. a bit like that; going to be tough. The day of the unveiling, be tough. you know what do? going to come (to the statue site) by myself.

You know how grief is, when your mom or dad you go to their cemetery, or the place where you remember them the best, and this will be my place where I remember him the memoirs, which run 288 pages, are now on store shelves. Before he died, he dictated his story to grandson Zaine Michael, who then passed transcripts to the publisher. Neil said his dad was not one to keep memorabilia. Very little is left from his past, and it feels good for him to have and to hold book, and to know soon be a statue re ecting that life. gave everything Neil said.

his memorabilia is gone. He gave it away; he gave it to everyone. Old people, young people, towns, reserves. This (statue) is one thing have that will be Fred Sasakamoose reacted emotionally whenever he was hon- oured, whether in a big way or a small way, and Neil said his dad would have got a kick out of proceedings. think he would have had a big smile, and he would have thanked everyone, and he would have been emotionally attached to everyone Neil said.

would have had a big smile. My dad had a certain way of smiling as a child, and what he would have had. He would have said a lot of in humbleness, the way he was, but he would have had a big would have had a big In 2017, Fred Sasakamoose dropped the puck for Connor McDavid, left, and Jonathan Toews. The occasion was Sasakamoose being named to the Order of Canada. ED A ISER FILES red Sasakamoose, first treaty Indian in NHL, remembered during day of tribute REGINA LEADER-POST WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 2021 PAGE A9 Fans will be starting to make their way back to Canadian arenas.

Quebec Premier Legault, pictured, said on Tuesday that his government is beginning to loosen pandemic restrictions, including allowing 2,500 fans to attend Montreal Canadiens games as of May 28 at the Bell Centre. The Habs are scheduled to begin their best-of-seven NHL playo series on Thursday against the Maple Leafs in Toronto. If the series goes six games, that sixth game would be held at the Bell Centre on May 29, with the admission of up to 250 people per section coming into ect as of May 28. The series against the Leafs is the rst time the iconic Canadian teams have met in the playo since 1979. If the playo round is extended to a sixth game, it will be the rst time fans in Canada are back in the stands since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Postmedia News HABS TO ALLOW FANS IN STANDS.