Darren Zary
Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Translation, please?
Thousands of miles from home, an anxious Gunner Kinniburgh awaited his hockey fate on a medical report scribbled in a language completely foreign to him.
The fifth-year University of Saskatchewan Huskies defenceman — named the team’s new captain this week — had been injured during the second game, his first, during the Huskies’ European hockey excursion in September.
At first, it looked bad.
Like, really bad.
“I thought he broke his leg,” admits Huskies head coach Brandin Cote, whose team opens a new Canada West season Friday night against the Mount Royal University Cougars with a pre-game conference championship banner-raising ceremony to kick things off.
(Game-time is 7 p.m. Friday at Merlis Belsher Place. A second game will be played Saturday afternoon, 4 p.m., at MBP.)
Turns out it was a dislocated knee cap for Kinniburgh.
Also potentially really bad.
Yet, the lanky defenceman dodged a bullet, not to mention a surgical scalpel.
“I got super lucky,” says the Lloydminster product, who attended training camp with the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets in 2023.
“Considering there was no ACL, MCL or PCL (damage), it’s a relatively short time-line compared to what it could have been — and no surgery. It could have been easily season-ending.”
No ligament damage
The incident happened during what was only his second period of action over in Europe. The game was against the HK Nitra pro team in Slovakia.
“It was a clean, fair hit,” Kinniburgh recalls. “I was trying to get the puck deep. I knew I was going to get hit. My foot just kind of stuck in the ice and I fell back on it, kind of twisted on my leg. I knew instantly it dislocated my knee.”
Kinniburgh hopes to be back playing in a few weeks. For now, he’s wearing a leg brace and still working through physio.
“I’m really thankful for our student-trainers and the hard work they put in for helping me, as well as the Slovakian hospitals. And their team doctor really helped out,” he says.
“They got me in and out right away, within an hour. I got an X-ray, made sure the bones weren’t broken. I was back in the hotel for the night. It was pretty quick. MRI within 24 hours. I can’t speak highly enough for how well they treated us over there. I’m super thankful for all of that.”
Still, Kinniburgh hadn’t known whether there was ligament damage to the knee until he was finally able to read the MRI report when back in Canada.
“I had the results on a CD disk so I couldn’t read them,” he explains. “I was a little anxious. No one has those CD disk-readers anymore, so we had to wait until we got back to Canada to read them.”
The language barrier provided some other anxious moments.
“I was in the ambulance, and they were trying to give me something and I didn’t know what it was,” recalls Kinniburgh. “I was, like, ‘no, I need to know what is this? What is this?’ We got a translator over and it ended up just being an IV. I was, like, ‘oh, sure, fine.’ It was just the language barrier, but I’m thankful there were translators there and we had it figured out.”
Kinniburgh figures the Europe trip was a “great experience” nonetheless.
“The culture over there was amazing, all the old buildings and the castles. It was a great opportunity for our team to really get together, bond and spend a lot of quality time together. I mean, we were together 24-7 there for two weeks or so.”
While it was fun getting to know the young guys, Kinnburgh also got to know the older teammates — “guys you think you’ve known for four years” — and actually build on that, “to live with them in close quarters because we all understand how small the hotel rooms are in Europe.”
Kinniburgh — who has been a pleasant surprise since joining the team when Mike Babcock assumed the head coaching reigns for one season — takes over as captain from graduating forward Justin Ball.
Before Ball, Shane Collins was captain.
“It’s an honour, it’s a privilege,” says Kinniburgh, who stands 6-foot-3 and weighs 190 pounds. “It’s something I’ll never take for granted. I mean, the Huskie hockey team has such a tradition, a long winning tradition of great people coming through.”
Kinniburgh, 25, felt it was “real important” to return for one final year of eligibility, and to finish what the team has started. They captured bronze at last season’s University Cup national championship after winning the Canada West title.
“Coach and I sat down at the end of the year. We kind of had a vision of what the next year looked like. I wasn’t completely sold on coming back, because I had finished my degree.
“Then coach and I had a conversation and it really lit a fire under my belly and really made me want to come back, because you see the team we have. We have such a great group of guys, close-knit. We have an opportunity to do something special here.”
DOG TALES: Kinniburgh is joined by alternate captains Dawson Holt, Liam Keeler, Ty Prefontaine and Chantz Petruic … The U of S women’s hockey team starts its Canada West season in Calgary against Mount Royal this weekend.
