~ Article written by Jamie Neugebauer, image courtesy the La Ronge Ice Wolves
A sluggish start to the 2021-2022 Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League season for the La Ronge Ice Wolves has them fighting for a playoff spot as the stretch-run is just around the bend, but it is a foolish team indeed that will take them lightly on any given night, and Aaron Greyeyes is a huge reason why.
A 20-year-old from Marcellin, SK, a village part of the Muskeg Lake Cree nation between Prince Albert and North Battleford, Greyeyes burst onto the SJHL scene as a hard-skating, hard-shooting competitor in the 19-20 campaign, featuring prominently as the then-new coach and general manager Kevin Kaminski sought to revitalize the struggling franchise.
Originally listed by the Battlefords North Stars out of his Beardy’s Blackhawks U18 AAAs, Greyeyes’ rights were moved to the Wolves at the trade deadline in Jan. 2019, but he has been a fan favourite in the northeastern Saskatchewan community ever since.
“He’s got the whole package together,” Coach Kaminski said of Greyeyes during his rookie season to Global News.
“He’s getting that confidence…and it will just become natural for him to become a dominant player at this level.”
Greyeyes, a strongly-built 5-foot-11, 180-pound right-winger, is also an accomplished lacrosse player, and he represented the Six Nations Iroquois at the 2019 World Junior Lacrosse Championship.
Kaminski has constantly been successful at infusing La Ronge with a strong sense of passion and intensity, and so it is little surprise that he has counted on Greyeyes to be a regular contributor in all aspects of the Wolves’ success.
It has been a season of wild ups and wild downs for Greyeyes, with a solid 24 points through 36 games at the time of writing, but he was part of that talented 19-20 team that was robbed of a long playoff run by the pandemic, so it is fair to expect he will be front and centre should La Ronge find their way into the post-season again.
