When York Lions’ award-winning defenceman Derek Sheppard reflects on the last three seasons and the journey it took for his team to get to this weekend’s University Cup men’s hockey championship, a tremendous amount of success definitely comes to mind.

But there’s been an equal amount of struggle as well.

“We met as a team early this season, and we have a very big team this year, there’s 32 guys involved with our team,” Sheppard said Tuesday, as the Lions prepped for the eight-team national tournament.

The tourney begins Thursday in New Brunswick and features York, Queen’s, Alberta, St. Francis Xavier, Acadia, McGill, Saskatchewan and the host University of New Brunswick.

“When we met, we spoke about what our team identity would be. We’ve been fortunate to have success, we won the Queen’s Cup (Ontario University Athletics championship),” he said. “But in my (freshmen year, 2014-15, when the team finished last) we had to stick together through the tough times too. So the success is something you appreciate because you went through the tough times together.”

Sheppard — who won the OUA’s Western Conference outstanding player award, top defenceman honours and first team all-star kudos — does his utmost to help promote his team and the brand of hockey at the university level. On Tuesday, he wolfed his lunch down and shuffled his study time — exams are coming up at York — to speak with a reporter.

There’s a host of athletes multi-task this week with school and sports, both at the men’s championship and with the women’s championship being held at Queen’s University this weekend.

Along with the men’s and women’s national hockey titles, Ryerson is hosting the national women’s volleyball championships at the Mattamy Athletic Centre.

In many ways, Sheppard represents what many university athletes understand — you have school, studies and even jobs to make ends meet, but your teams are your second families.

The 22-year-old from Ajax was overlooked in his major junior draft year. His parents, father Dan, a retired Toronto police officer, and mother Sandra, a figure skating coach, drove him around to rinks while he was playing with Pickering and then with Aurora in the Ontario Junior Hockey League.

At one point, a scout from the QMJHL’s Gatineau Olympiques offered him a tryout and, after weighing that against attending college in the States, Sheppard went to Gatineau, where he spent two years as a fourth-line forward.

“When I got there (Gatineau), they had an abundance of defenceman … I played defence may whole life, but they offered me the opportunity to play forward,” Sheppard said. “I’m happy to do whatever role they give me. I came back to York and (then coach Jim Wells) offered me the chance to play defence again.”

Sheppard was overlooked in the NHL draft as well, but he has a smile now, looking back at the improvements he made to his game to get to the weekend, where he enters the University Cup with a chance to earn all-Canadian honours and most outstanding player in the country.

“I was brutal,” Sheppard said, about his skating when he was growing up, and the resulting lessons he had to take from his mother.

“I started skating lessons with my mother, and I was working with a colleague of hers, who’s a power skating coach … I met up with Dan Milne, who goes to McGill now, and we’ve become good friends.”

Does Sheppard still harbour a pro hockey dream ?

He does, and many of his co-horts this weekend do as well. The University of Alberta alone has sent 15 athletes to the NHL, the latest being Derek Ryan.

Now 30, Ryan was overlooked in the NHL draft, and played four seasons, from 2007-11 for Alberta before rambling through Sweden, Austria and the AHL en route to a contract with the Carolina Hurricanes. The native of Spokane, Wa., made his NHL debut March 1 of last year and scored his first goal that very game, just a few days after his wife gave birth to the couple’s first child.

At the nationals this weekend, UNB’s Phillip Maillet is a standout player, and a favourite to be named player of the year. Teammate and defenceman Jordan Murray is another all-Canadian candidate; Saskatchewan goalie Jordan Cooke was a member of Team Canada’s entry at the Spengler Cup this year, and former NHL goalie Sean Burke’s son, Brendan, is in net for Alberta.

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For Sheppard, dreams are on hold for now. He’s worked the past three summers working for a landscaping company, and is studying business and history at York. Exams are coming up after the University Cup, but the chance to play for a national championship is something to be cherished.

“We (Lions) went through a tough road just to win the Queen’s Cup, we played Guelph, Lakehead and Windsor, and any of those teams could just as easily be playing this weekend too,” Sheppard said. “You break it down to one game at a time, but you break it down smaller than that too … down to a shift at a time, because if you get down after a bad shift, this tournament is too short to look back, or forward.

“You live in the moment and you’re thankful for the opportunity.”

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