Lakehead hockey team names new captain

Four years ago, Adam Sergerie was just another young forward on a deep Lakehead Thunderwolves hockey roster, clawing and scratching for playing time.
He had returned to his hometown of Thunder Bay after a short-lived professional career that barely lasted half a season. Not being one of the “glamorous” recruits from the major junior hockey circuit, the university squad’s coaches told him to work hard and ice time will come.
Three seasons of scoring nearly at a point-per-game clip and plenty of hard work later, Sergerie has reached the top. On Monday, the Thunderwolves officially announced Sergerie as their captain for the 2012-13 season.
“It’s not something I take for granted. I believe it’s an honour,” the 26-year-old Sergerie said Monday. “With the program being here for 11 years and so few captains, it’s a privilege.”
Sergerie is the fifth captain in the history of this current Lakehead hockey program, joining Joel Scherban, Jeff Richards, Andrew Brown and Jordan Smith (the team used three associate captain instead of one captain last season). Sergerie and Scherban, who’s now the Thunderwolves head coach, are the only Thunder Bay-born players on that list.
“He has earned the respect of both his teammates and his coaches and will continue to be a tremendous leader and role model,” Scherban said of Sergerie in a team statement.
Kalvin Sagert, Andrew Wilkins and Trevor Gamache were named assistant captains on Monday.
Sergerie enters his fifth-and-final season at Lakehead looking for a better end than last year. Despite sitting fifth in team scoring with 11 goals and 10 assists in 24 regular season games, Sergerie only played twice in the playoffs due to concussion-like symptoms.
The ‘C’ on Sergerie’s jersey will make its debut Friday when Lakehead hosts the Ottawa Gee-Gees in the first of two non-conference games at Fort William Gardens. The new prestige won’t change how he approaches leadership, he stressed.
“I’d like to think I lead by example with hard work and being a role model throughout the community,” said Sergerie, whose early linemates at camp have included Wilkins and sophomore Jake Carrick. “As far as talking, only when something needs to be said, I’ll say it. Just be myself and not change who I really am — that’s the most important part.”
While Sergerie never sharpened his junior hockey in the Ontario, Western or Quebec major leagues, he came to Lakehead as a junior A scoring machine. Sergerie packed in 62 points, including 38 goals, in 44 games with the Superior International Junior Hockey League’s Thunder Bay Bulldogs in 2004, followed by a two-year stint in the Manitoba league where he recorded 64 goals for Selkirk in 2007.
Sergerie said following now-defunct teams like the Thunder Bay Flyers and the Senators/Thunderhawks as a youngster made him appreciate what taking over the flagship hockey program in the city means.
“Being from here and knowing growing up and seeing what the hockey club was like, it’s something you always think about,” he said. “Something that when it happens, it’s that much better.”
The selections of Sagert and Wilkins, who like Sergerie are also seniors, and Gamache were well made, he added.
“Kalvin has been a leader here for three or four years now. Andrew, even though he’s worn the ‘A’ before, he’s been everything you can ask a player to be — the ultimate team player,” said Sergerie, who’s enrolled in the one-year teachers' college program at LU.
“Same goes for Trevor. He’s come in and he’s worked hard. He’s established himself throughout the community and he’s really earned it. But that doesn’t take anything away from all the other guys in the dressing room.”