The Success Starts Here series features profiles on SJHL Alumni who are currently, or have played hockey at a post-secondary institution. Check out the full interviews every Thursday on the SJHL Insider Podcast and check back at SJHL.ca for profile pieces Wednesdays.
It was one of those deep, dark, cold Saskatchewan winter nights in late 2021.
The Notre Dame Hounds had fallen just a few hours earlier at home to the Battlefords North Stars in a hard-fought affair. It was around midnight when ND’s broadcaster, needing to avoid the main road due to a big accident, found his little Hyundai Elantra stuck in a massive snow drift on an unmarked grid road somewhere north of Wilcox.
Lo and behold, news got around the junior dorms, and Captain Kevin Anderson wasted no time, in -35 degree weather, hours after playing a game, to organize a rescue crew to come help out the game-caller (for those wondering, that broadcaster was this writer).
That type of character is just a glimpse of what Anderson has always been all about.
Anderson, now 22, was the rare 18-year-old SJHL captain in the 2021-22 campaign, and he shouldered that load flawlessly. He posted 30 goals and 79 points in 58 games that year for the Notre Dame Hounds, good enough for second in the league behind fellow young phenom Connor McGrath (who is at Ferris State, NCAA Div I).
He played hard and well in all situations, including on the penalty kill, and helped lead the team all the team’s big face-offs and led the Hounds to their last ever SJHL playoff berth before the organization’s move to Warman this past off-season.
That he was recently named an assistant captain for the prestigious Princeton College is no surprise to his coach at Notre Dame, Brett Pilkington, now in Warman.
“Kevin Anderson is one of a kind,” says Pilkington.
“He is a true leader in everything he does, day in and day out. He defines what it means to be a student athlete as he takes the highest pride in his education, hockey and life.”
Anderson hails from Regina, SK, and was at the College of Notre Dame in Wilcox from 2017 to 2022, where he played the final two seasons with the Junior Hounds.
The COVID-19 pandemic cut his rookie campaign short in 2020-21. Still, the talent, skating, and character package that he had caught the eye of the Ivy League school early on, and he committed late in 2020, even before his breakout first real junior season.
Ever the thoughtful, reflective type, Kevin credits Notre Dame and the SJHL heavily for his ability to survive and thrive at Princeton and in NCAA Division I hockey.
“I learned to keep my head up a bit more, playing against Humboldt 15 times a year,” Anderson laughs.
“I think obviously D1 is a big jump from any league, but a big part I’m thankful for in the SJHL is that it’s a very physical league. In the ECAC, we play really hard, so I’m grateful for that. That’s one of the big things—learning to play a more physical game, which is what the next level is. Being able to think the game and play a physical game—that’s something I’m really thankful I got to jump-start on before I came here.
“I think you really have to grow up fast (when you play in the SJHL),” Anderson adds.
“It really turns you into a man, I think. Sometimes your skate lace breaks mid-game, and you don’t have one, and you have to figure it out. Stuff like that makes you more immune to adversity. It’s a good experience.”
As much as the fact that Anderson jumped right from the SJHL as an 18-year-old into Princeton is impressive, it is not like he is a rags-to-riches story either.
His terrific U15 season in 2017-18 earned him a draft selection from the Western Hockey League’s Kootenay ICE (now the Wenatchee Wild) in the 2018 draft. Then his work as a 15-year-old in U18AAA the following season led him to a spot on Team Saskatchewan at the 2019 Canada Winter Games alongside current NHLers Cole Sillinger and Nolan Allan.
He attended WHL training camp with the Winnipeg ICE, which had moved from Kootenay, and was named to the 2021-2022 SJHL All-Rookie Team and SJHL/MJHL Showcase roster.
With his high school average in the mid-90s and his hockey acumen, the fit for and with the Tigers was perfect both ways.
“We (on the Princeton hockey team) always like to say it’s the best of both worlds,” Anderson says.
“We’re playing D1 hockey, but we’re also at one of the best schools in the world. That’s the big selling point. School has always been important for me, but obviously, hockey is the number one priority, and there’s no better place to do it than here. We’ve got a really nice gym, and all the facilities—that’s kind of a standard—but there’s nothing better than getting to compete every day on the ice and then also in the classroom. You’re learning with some of the smartest people in the world. Every day I go to class, meet someone, and I’m just blown away. I can’t believe I’m here.”
“It’s a crazy change of pace from Saskatchewan,” Anderson continues.
“I spent my whole life there, and then the first time stepping on campus, everyone’s buzzing around. You can tell there’s a different energy here. It’s definitely really cool to be a part of it, and I’m thankful every day for being here.”
Anderson admits he does not “really have the words” for how big an honour it is to wear the ‘A’ on the prestigious Orange and Black Princeton jersey, but to be a leader by example and by word is something that comes naturally to him.
In that 2021-22 SJHL season, his teammate Will Dawson, a native of Michigan, recognized in Kevin many attributes that he wanted to adopt himself.
Dawson would work out when Kevin did, practice like Kevin did, eat when Kevin did, and watch film like Kevin did.
It should not come as a surprise, then, that Dawson would add his hard work to Anderson’s tutelage and parlay it into a spot at Air Force Academy, who also play NCAA Division I hockey.
In fact, no fewer than 17 players from that 21-22 Hounds team ended up playing at a post-secondary institution, with a number of them still playing today.
“That’s something our coach has been tremendous on here at Princeton, too, but I think back at Notre Dame, Brett (Pilkington) was huge on that—just pulling guys along,” Anderson says.
“A big thing I learned at Notre Dame in my five years there is that it’s the stuff you do when no one’s watching that really adds up and builds a team to take it to the next level. I’m just trying to do that every day and hopefully inspire some of the younger guys to do the same. I think it works both ways. With Will and a couple of the other younger guys on that team—I mean, I was a young guy on that team, too—but pulling guys along keeps you accountable, too, and I think it goes both ways.”
Anderson is entering his senior year in college and has posted 13 points in 54 games at the NCAA Division I level.
There have been, are, and will continue to be so many incredible young men through the ranks of the SJHL, and while there may be some as remarkable as Anderson, there are, in the opinion of this writer, none better.
