Toronto Star

York: Former Leafs assistant Chris Dennis is hoping to lead Lions to OUA crown

- MARK ZWOLINSKI SPORTS REPORTER

When Chris Dennis took over the head coaching post with the York University men’s hockey team, he had a solid group of “character players” who were coming off a last-place finish the season before.

That was 2015. Two seasons later, Dennis and his York Lions will be competing for an Ontario University Athletics championsh­ip on Saturday, the first time a York men’s team has qualified for a Queen’s Cup in 13 years.

Their hard work, and the staff’s smart recruiting, has already led to a host of OUA individual awards: blue- liner Derek Sheppard was named the league MVP and its top defenceman, goalie Mack Shields was named top rookie, and Dennis was honoured as coach of the year for the second straight season.

“To me, this has been a two-year process,” said the 37-yeard-old Dennis, who spent 10 years in the Leafs organizati­on under the likes of Pat Quinn, Paul Maurice, Ron Wilson and Randy Carlyle.

“When the new coaching staff took over, we had no time to recruit — we took the team we had,” Dennis said. “And we had a good team, good kids willing to work hard.

“Last summer, we had our first recruiting process and we were lucky enough to add some great kids and we went from there.”

Sheppard, an Ajax native, was one of the holdovers on the roster, as was Thornhill’s Trevor Petersen. Shields, who had been with the junior Medicine Hat Tigers, led a blue-chip recruiting class.

All three were named OUA all-stars this season — Sheppard and Shields to the first team, Petersen to the second.

Other first-year players included Nick Zottl, from the Mississaug­a Steelheads, and transfers Steven James and Bryce Milson, who came over from New Brunswick’s St. Thomas University after the school folded its men’s hockey program.

York went from worst to first last season, and finished second this year before marching through three bestof-five rounds en route to Saturday’s final, a winner-take-all game against Queen’s University at the York campus.

Both clubs have qualified for the national tournament next weekend in New Brunswick.

‘We’re happy to have the opportunit­y to compete for a championsh­ip,” said Dennis, whose father, Paul, spent 20 years as part of the Leafs’ player developmen­t staff, and is now part of the psychology faculty at York.

“(Queen’s is) very similar to us, goals scored, and goals against, so we’d expect a close game.”

 ?? RICK MADONIK/TORONTO STAR ?? York Lions goalie Mack Shields was named the OUA’s top rookie.
RICK MADONIK/TORONTO STAR York Lions goalie Mack Shields was named the OUA’s top rookie.

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