By Gary Moskalyk, Special to the CJ
A three-sport athlete growing up, Geoff Dempster ultimately chose hockey over baseball and golf .
The Lakehead Thunderwolves men’s hockey team is glad he did.
Dempster regularly wins the long-drive events at the private Ottawa golf club he plays at, and was a middle infielder/pitcher on his AAA travelling baseball team in Ottawa, batting second or third.
“I decided hockey was the better fit for me,” said the freshman forward, who tried to juggle two sports but gave up baseball after his first year of junior hockey with Nepean (Raiders, CCHL). “Even though I was very good at baseball, it’s tough to get recruited in Ottawa and in Canada.”
Thunderwolves head coach Andrew Wilkins saw Dempster play in Nova Scotia and in Alberta with the Ottawa Jr. Senators, who went on to CCHL and East region championships to qualify for the Canadian junior A championship tournament in Brooks, Alta., last May. The winning pedigree looks good on Dempster’s resume.
“He asked me and Taylor Egan (defenceman) to come to Thunder Bay on a visit. We both went together, flew down,” Dempster recalled. “My dad (Rob) came as well. We liked it here. Made it a pretty easy decision.”
Egan was also a mid-season addition for the Senators and is starting his varsity career at Lakehead too.
Dempster, at six-foot-three and 190 pounds, has the size at six-— and desire — to be a net front presence.
“I like to use my body size to my advantage,” said Dempster, who played 90 games last year. “I was pretty versatile (in Ottawa) just because we had a lot of injuries, especially late in the season. Lot of situations where roles just needed to be filled in. We’d lose a guy or maybe someone just wasn’t on their best game. I was basically a right wing, left wing, centre.
“I was power play, mainly in front of the net, down low guy depending on the system we were playing,” he added. “Had a lot of penalty kill minutes as well. I was kind of used in every situation I’d say.”
The transition from junior to university hockey might go smoother for Dempster than some. He got a good sniff of the varsity scene watching his share of games.
“I lived about five minutes from Carleton University in the East, and I went to school at U of Ottawa for a few years while I played junior. I was fortunate enough to see a decent amount of games played. Carleton had a good team last year and I got to see some playoff games.
“I’ve definitely seen the physicality and the size and the type of game play that goes on in the league,” Dempster added. “I know where I have to get to compete every night. It’s a great league. A lot of former OHL, (QMJHL) players, guys that came back from Division I, top junior A players. There’s no deadweight in this league. Everyone is good.”
Dempster followed his Montreal Expos to Washington to become a Nationals fan. His travelling baseball team got to play some Division I teams down in Fort Myers, Fla.
“Got smoked,” Dempster recalled with a laugh.
Good times, but hockey won out in the end.
“It got a little busy when I got older. I was playing junior hockey and travel baseball,” he said. “We were practicing three times a week for baseball while I was practicing and playing baseball every day. I’d be non-stop going from baseball to hockey, training. It just became a lot. Had to decide.”
The Thunderwolves completed their second week of season-opening practices on Friday. With news coming Thursday that their first non-conference games at Fort William Gardens were cancelled, the Thunderwolves will instead open the schedule Sept. 27-28 at home against the Guelph Gryphons.
LU will hold a public intrasquad game on Thursday at 7 a.m. at Port Arthur Arena.
