Windsor, Ont. - It wasn’t the ideal setting for the final game of the season for the Keyano Huskies Men’s Soccer team, but sports ever rarely finish on the storybook ending.  
 
Under the cloudy skies of southern Ontario and in a stadium that was generously estimated as being at 30% capacity on St. Clair College’s own campus, the Huskies took a 4-1 defeat at the hands of the host Saints in Saturday’s Bronze Medal Game at the 2023 Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association’s (CCAA) Men’s Soccer National Championship. 
 
Caleb Kehler, playing his final game for the Huskies, struck for the late goal to break up the clean sheet effort by the Saints.  
 
“The result of the game is maybe disappointing, but I think we have to now look at the whole season and see what kind of success we made out of it,” Head Coach Niels Slotboom said. “It’s a bit of a sour taste because you always want to end on a winning note.  
 
“Of course you come here to try and medal, but perspective is important and being fourth in the country is quite the accomplishment for our group.”  
 
While the Huskies will leave Windsor, Ont. without a medal around their necks, the meaning of their attendance on the national stage goes deeper than most realize.  
 
The rest of the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) Men’s Soccer scene will have the Huskies to thank for the valuable points and placing that helps in the conference’s bid for a future wildcard spot at National Men’s Soccer Championships. Those points, which will hold value for the next three years, are a symbol of the Huskies contribution to the furtherment of the conference’s success on the national stage. 
 
From the Huskies’ perspective, their program can also celebrate the growth of where they were only a few years ago.  
 
Players now getting set to graduate from the program or the team’s grizzled veterans can certainly recall their 3-5-4 record in the 2019 season, the 1-3-2 record in the 2021 COVID-shortened season where they didn’t exactly qualify for playoffs on their own merits at times and were bounced in the opening round of those playoffs.  
 
There was also 2022’s surging September, followed by them limping into the playoff scene, only to end their season on back-to-back losses to the NAIT Ooks and TKU Eagles and finish in fourth place.  
 
“That’s where our job as the coaches come into play,” Slotboom continued. “That experience where you know we’ve had disappointment before and you have that new perspective now of how difficult it actually is to accomplish what we just did.  
 
“That’s our job, is to make sure that we teach them that way and that we show that perspective to them so that we can be disappointed, but still see the value in what we’ve done and recognize the accomplishment  of being the fourth-best team in the country this year.”  

In 2023, the Huskies flipped the script.   

After starting 1-2-1, they ended their regular season with eight-straight victories, topped the North Division on the final day of the regular season, beat the aforementioned Ooks and Eagles en route to their fourth ACAC Championship, and beat the two other Conference Champions they faced on the pressure of the national stage.  
 
Since the Huskies entered ACAC play in 2002, they’ve won four of the 21 championships awarded in that span, one behind the Ooks, whose five titles rank as the most in that span. 
 
When looking at the ACAC’s history in Men’s Soccer, only eight different schools have won titles. For the Huskies to be on that list, which includes six active ACAC institutions and to have won multiple titles is worthy of adding to the program’s stature.  
 
“In the college world you always have turnover on every squad,” Slotboom continued. “We are no different there so we people that are graduating, some people that are moving on, but we also have a lot of interest from new recruits coming in so we’re obviously going to use this result as a jumping board to get to that next level.  
 
“I think there’s still higher levels for us to be able to get to with our program. That includes some of the players that we have, but also the new recruits that’ll be coming in. When you do well at a nationals stage, there’s going to be more interest from other people.”   

It speaks to the mentality Slotboom is trying to instill that the success in the interim is celebrated. However, it’s also coupled with the understanding that he and the returning student-athletes have some unfinished business left to take care of with their sights set on making a trip to Fredericton, New Brunswick next year.  
 
“We’re not planning on taking any steps backwards here.”