The big story for the Yorkton Terriers in 2019-20 obviously was the scoring prowess shown by team captain Chantz Petruic.
The RBC Player of the Year and SGEU Most Valuable Player, after all, figured in on more than 55 per cent of the Terriers’ total offence, but it wasn’t just Petruic that helped Yorkton claim the Viterra Division title – there were others.
One of those was rookie Steven Norum as the recently-turned 19-year-old Sherwood Park, Alta., product chipped in with 27 points in 57 games and finished the regular season strong collecting eight points in his last nine outings.
Included in the 6-foot-1, 185-pound forward’s totals were four game-winning markers and seven power-play tallies showing that he was relied on in many different situations.
Norum made the jump to the Terriers after spending the last two seasons with the Sherwood Park Kings of the Alberta Midget AAA Hockey League. In 47 games over that span Norum registered 22 points, but in his first year of midget hockey, Norum averaged more than a point per game when he had 36 points in 34 games with the Sherwood Park Minor Midget Squires.
The Terriers open the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League playoffs against the La Ronge Ice Wolves and it will be all hands on deck as Yorkton looks to make a deep run towards a Canalta Cup championship. Norum looks like he is ready to face that challenge as his late-season scoring touch coincided with the absence of Petruic for most of that stretch indicating that he is ready for more responsibility and with two more years of junior hockey remaining he could be a big part of not just the present, but also the future of the Terrier hockey team
