We’ve got some highlights (and lowlights) from GBHA Alumni Weekend to share with you as well as a video from our CHL recruiting campaign and our first sponsorship contribution to our October 31st GBHA “Leadership Luncheon” at The Derrick.
All that further below, but with two weeks left until our Leadership Luncheon, we’re introducing to you today the four GBHA members who will be the stars of the show in our Leadership Luncheon Alumni Roundtable. Check them out below, and you’ll be blown away by who’s stepped up for us.
And then it’s your turn to step up and support them and your GBHA by buying your tickets to the luncheon @ $125 each, a table of 8 for $1,000: Click Here To Buy Tickets!
Golden Bear Hockey Central Casting:
Check out the profiles of these four GBHA members below, and you’ll agree with me that we couldn’t have found four guys who better exemplify what it means to be a leader on the ice and in the community as a Golden Bear hockey player. If we had a Golden Bears Hockey Central Casting department, these four guys would be the first four we’d promote.
Riley Kieser, Steven Young, Barrie Stafford and Dion Zukiwsky have been leaders on the ice during their careers with the Bears, and have since taken leadership roles in their post-Bears lives. We’ll hear their views on what it means to be a Bears Alumni, how all of us can help the team this year, and they’ll share some fun and interesting stories of their time as a Golden Bear.
Riley Kieser:
- Won gold with team Canada West at the 2011 World Junior A Challenge. Won a Memorial Cup in 2013-14 in his final WHL season with the Edmonton Oil Kings and was awarded the Oil Kings’ Humanitarian of the Year award.
- Through five years with the Bears, the team won four Canada West titles and two National Championships (2014/15 and 2017/18). Served as captain of the Bears for two seasons (2017/18 and 2018/19) and went five-for-five as an Academic All-Canadian while graduating with a degree in Civil-Environmental Engineering. In his final season, was awarded the Canada West Student Athlete and Community Service Award, the U of A Block A Ring Award, and the Class of 1950 Civil Engineer’s Award from the Faculty of Engineering.
- Following his career with the Bears, Riley pursued his engineering career, gaining his professional engineer designation and now works as a waste management consultant with GHD Ltd. In the community, he has been involved with the Edmonton chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society, including speaking at the Edmonton MS Walk and serving multiple years as co-captain for the United Sport & Cycle team in the MS Bike Tour.
Steven Young:
- Played four seasons in the WHL with the Brandon Wheat Kings and was drafted 89th overall (5th round) by the New York Islanders in the 1989 NHL entry draft. He then played four seasons with the Bears from 1990-94, winning a national championship with the team in 1992.
- Retired as a Staff Sergeant after 20 years of policing in Edmonton, entered politics and served as a Member of the Alberta Legislature and Chief Government Whip. His career across policing, politics, government, cooperatives, and multiple business sectors provides a unique perspective on how to navigate challenges, capture opportunities, and create organizations that deliver long-term value.
- He is Chief Executive Officer of the Alberta Federation of Rural Electrification Associations (AFREA), Chair of the Alberta Community & Co-operative Association (ACCA), and Board Member of the Alberta Energy Efficiency Alliance (AEEA), and the Alberta Criminal Code Review Board. He is also a regular lecturer at the Alberta School of Business and instructor at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in negotiation, mediation and consensus building.
Barrie Stafford:
- Golden Bear player for four years from 1977-81and a member of the “three-peat” national champions 1978-1980. Joined the Edmonton Oilers as a trainer 1982-83 and served as Head Equipment Manager for 28 years, including all five Stanley Cup winning teams. Manager – Oilers Alumni Relations from 2016-2019.
- Head Equipment manager for Team Canada at eight major international tournaments. Won Gold medals with Canada at the 1984, ’87 and ’91 Canada Cups, the 1994 World Championships in Milan, Italy and was a member of Canada’s Gold medal winning team at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Won Gold at the 2006 World Cup, Silver at the inaugural World Cup of Hockey in 1996 and was in Torino with Canada’s 2006 Olympic Team.
- In 2011 he was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma (blood-born bone cancer) and after months of treatment and a stem-cell transplant, he went into remission. Since then, he has dedicated his energy and teambuilding skills in the fight against cancer. He is a board member of the Cure Cancer Foundation and co-chair of the highly successful, semi-annual “Toast of the Town” fundraising event, which honored Barrie at their first event in 2019.
Dion Zukiwsky:
- Four years with the Regina Pats, 1992-1996. Captain last 2 seasons, also Academic player of the year award 1995, top defenseman 1996. Joined Bears over Christmas 1996, played next 3 1/2 seasons and made national finals every year, winning back-to-back championships in 1999 and 2000. Played overseas in German Oberliga one season.
- Since then, with three sons, he’s coached every age group in minor hockey, including assistant coach for Red Deer Midget AAA for two seasons, winning Alberta title both times and the national title once.
- Currently branch manager and lead portfolio manager at ScotiaMcleod (division of ScotiaWealth Management) in Red Deer. Grown business from one employee to 15, current branch assets under administration just over $1BN. Teams are very involved in community work, every employee has to have at least one cause. Most notable are Red Deer Minor Hockey, Red Deer Regional Health Foundation, Outreach Centre, United Way. https:/ /zukgroup.ca/contact/dion-zukiwsky/
I’ll be leading these four in a 20-minute, fast-paced, entertaining and highly interesting roundtable discussion. There’s be no holds barred as they call things as they see it, give us insight into what being a Bear has meant in their careers, and their thoughts on how all of us can help the Bears. Mixed in that will be some memories of fun times with teammates.
You can’t miss this, right? Make sure you don’t: Click Here To Buy Tickets!
Here’s where we are on ticket sales to date. We’re nearly half-way to our 100 seats goal.
Your name not on this list? Here’s where you can fix that: Click Here To Buy Tickets!
And, a huge “Thank-you!” to Brian Middleton and Lear Real Estate for stepping up with a $1,000 Alumni Roundtable sponsorship donation to the luncheon!
If, like Brian, you have a conflict for October 31st and can’t make it to the luncheon, why not sponsor part of our event? Let me know and we’ll figure something out that fits your budget. These sponsorship donations are exceedingly helpful, since we have no meal costs to pay from them. So if you can’t join us in person, you can certainly support us with a sponsorship donation of any amount.
Alumni Weekend – Lowlights and Highlights
Lowlights: There’s no way to sugar-coat this: our 2025 GBHA Alumni Weekend was a bust. And, that’s on us, your GBHA Executive. We need to be better.
Nobody showed up for the Alumni skates, only a handful of us came to the two Bears vs. UBC games, there was nobody in the Bears’ Den, and only four of us showed up at the post-game Sweater Presentation event, billed as a GBHA event. The Bears lost twice to UBC, to make it even more of a downer.
What happened? Compared to the two great Alumni games and huge turnout last year, the difference could not have been greater. Feedback from the group that was there this weekend was unanimous: we didn’t give enough of a heads-up on everything. Not enough time, awkward registration portal, and not a concerted effort to get guys out. We will do better next year. Our apologies.
(Note***: The GBHA board will be having our AGM in the next few weeks. Item #1 on our agenda is bringing on three or four new board members to help us with the increasingly heavy workload you see we’re taking on. There’s very little time commitment on this – but lots of chance to have your voice heard and your ideas turned into action. And we’ve got lots of growth plans for the months ahead. If you like to build, grow and help us unleash the potential we all see in the GBHA to do good things for our members, for the Bears and for the U of A, drop me a line.)
Highlights: Kudos to Steve Knowles, Stan Marple and Ian Herbers for a truly wonderful Sweater Presentation ceremony on Saturday night after the game. Thank you guys so much. And thanks as well to Darrell Zapernick, Dan Bouwmeester and Marty Schmidt for joining me as well in helping with the presentations. Steve did a phenomenal job of providing a quick summary of each of the players, with Bears captain Dawson Davidson closing off the event with a truly strong thank-you and acknowledgement to everyone who supports the team, including our GBHA members.
It was truly amazing to meet all the players from this year’s team, see how proud they are to wear the Golden Bear sweater, and especially to meet their parents and other family members who came along for the event. The poor Alumni turnout, though, was noticeable – but the 10:00 pm on a Saturday night start time is clearly not ideal for something as good as this that should be a showcase of GBHA support. That’s going to be an easy fix for next year – guaranteed. Stay tuned.
Here’s the team pic from Saturday night with “Super Fan” Robert Soloview in the front row at centre. Robert’s been supporting our team for 25 years, handing out line-up sheets at the lobby entrance, and posing for this pic at every single Sweater Presentation event. Be sure to thank him next time you head to The Drake for a game.
Three-Peat fundraising push – Kevin Primeau sent out an email over the weekend to all the GBHA members who played on any one or more of the Bears’ teams that went on the iconic “three-peat” national championship run from 1978-80.
“Cec” is hoping that the group can collectively raise $15,000 in support of the Bears Support the Sport Golden Bears Hockey and have those three teams join the ’74-’75 and ’85-’86 national championship teams who rallied their members in the same cause earlier this year. Kudos to Cec for doing this – he was a player (and I was so lucky to have him as my linemate, along with Brue Crawford) on the ’74-’75 team, captain of the ’77-’78 team, and assistant coach on the ’85-‘86 team.
He’s also looking for help in finding contact info for the former team members listed here – let us know if you can help and we’ll pass that along to Cec: Dave Hindmarch, Dave Inch, Mike Proch, Danny Arndt, Joel Elliot, Steve Gagnon, Brad Hall, Arthur Lee, Dale Ross, Greg Skoreyko and Nick Sanza.
Here’s hoping we can see three more championship years added to this poster below currently on display in Section H of The Drake.
Canadian Hockey League recruiting video:
Delaney Miles, our GBHA Media Relations Director, is now starting to roll out some excellent graphics and videos as part of our recruiting campaign aimed at promoting the Bears program to juniors in the Canadian Hockey League.
More on how that’s going in the next E-news, including some numbers that will show you how this campaign is attracting a significant amount of attention. Delaney says “the algorithms are really kicking in and we’re getting some great numbers and feedback”. This is hugely helpful for not only our recruiting campaign but for GBHA exposure.
Here’s a video Delaney and I shot at the rink on Friday night and she’s posted on all our social media platforms: https://youtube.com/shorts/l4NNeJdU3UA?feature=share
Again, a huge thanks to every single one of you who has donated to the Bear Necessities Fund. It’s your contributions that allow us to hire Delaney and leverage her skills and expertise in graphics, communication and social media to deliver a compelling message for us. (Again, we’re grateful to Craig Styles for referring Delaney to us, as she is a key member of The Brick tournament powerful social media team.) The BNF as well supports the amazing work Angela Guignion does in putting this email together, tracking our donations along with Luke Tollenaar, doing up all our logos and graphics, replying to email or contact info requests from our Alumni as well as 100 other things on a daily basis.
Our fund total in this recent campaign to date $2,772.75 thanks to the generous contributions of between $20 and $200 from the following GBHA members: Adam Morrison, Bill Moores, Bob Steadward, Brent Cox, Bret Walter, Brian Middleton, Bruce Crawford, Cam Danyluk, Clark Jantzie, Craig Hordal, Dale Henwood, Dan Bouwmeester, Dave Carlyle, David Breakwell, Denniz Zukiwsky, Dick Wintermute, Don Darling, Graeme Craig, Jim Ofrim, Jim Wishloff, Luke Tollenaar, Mike Ballash, Mitch Topping, Murray Tait, Roger Kramers, Rick Peterson, Ron Heck, Shelby Karpman, Stacey Wakabayashi, Stan Marple, Steve Knowles and Wayne Page.
If you’d like to add your name to this list of donors, here’s the link.
