Noah Zerr will savour “full-circle moments” this weekend when he skates his first of several laps at Saskatoon’s Merlis Belsher Place.
The home arena for his alma mater, the University of Saskatchewan, will once again be the host venue for the Roughrider Foundation Winter Classic. Faceoff is set for Saturday at 1 p.m. (Tickets are available HERE.)
The third annual charity hockey game will feature current Saskatchewan Roughriders players — Zerr included — along with alumni with ties to the Green and White and the NHL.
Zerr, a Langenburg-born offensive lineman, checks several boxes as he prepares to play in his second Winter Classic.
“I feel like I had a little bit of the perfect concoction of a Saskatchewan kid who wanted to grow up and play for the Huskies and play for the hometown Riders,” the 6-foot-7, 330-pounder reflects. “It’s a little bit like ‘all my dreams came true.’
“Now I’m playing at Merlis Belsher Place and hanging out with the Roughriders on the ice. These are all things I loved to do and to watch while growing up.
“It really feels like a lot of full-circle moments.”
Zerr is eminently qualified to take part in the Winter Classic — a fundraiser for the Saskatchewan Roughrider Foundation’s mental health-oriented Win With Wellness Presentation Series.
Although Zerr is best known as a football player, his first steps as an athlete were taken on a hockey rink, at age five.
Before attending the U of S and excelling for the football Huskies, he played hockey for 11 years.
“I was always kind of the biggest kid in the class growing up, so it wasn’t hard to see me in a crowd,” Zerr says. “I wouldn’t say I was very athletic for my size, either, so it was a tough go out there.
“The parents would be upset with you until they saw you take a few laps. Then they realized it wasn’t going to be too much of a problem.”
Zerr was typically a third- or fourth-line forward and, as he put it, “a real glue guy on the bench.”
He stuck with hockey, and loved the experience, while helping the Langenburg Warriors win a succession of provincial titles at various levels.
“We had really good teams,” Zerr says. “We won our league almost every two years and sometimes back-to-back. I was on a great squad, but I was definitely carried the whole way.”
Carrying him, in a physical sense, is not a realistic notion for most people. By the time he reached Grade 4, he was already taller than every teacher in his middle school.
Opposing players couldn’t help but take note of Zerr’s towering presence.
“You strike a little fear into the hearts of young kids everywhere when you’re 6-foot-3 on skates and you’re 10 years old and you can barely control your body,” he says with a laugh. “It really is a recipe for disaster.
“There were a couple of times when some guys got some shots they deserved and there were a couple of times when they got some shots that were completely by accident.”
One time, Zerr faced shots in an unaccustomed capacity.
“One time, they put me at goalie,” he says. “I must have been six or seven. It was back in the day when you put everyone at goalie for a game. Everyone took their turn, so they threw me in pads.
“I lacked the flexibility to go on my knees, so I just stood there. I let in so many goals in the first period that one of my friends who was a defenceman was backchecking and instead of letting the guy shoot, he tackled him to the ground, because he just couldn’t take it anymore.
“I think they subbed me out for Period 2.”
Even with such an experience on his hockey resume, Zerr has fond recollections of time spent at the Langenburg Skating Arena and other rinks in Saskatchewan.
“As far as my profession and what I love to do, football will always be my game, but hockey is still very alive and well throughout those rural towns,” he says.
“My dad wasn’t the biggest hockey fan growing up, but I remember going with him on countless weekends to watch the senior men’s game at the local rink, just because we knew it would be a close game or we would be playing a bitter rival from a 10-minute drive away.
“It was always fun to be around and it was kind of what your friends did growing up. For me, it was a good social circle. It was a way to build my athletic career, which I really didn’t know I was going to have.
“It was just a really fun experience with some great coaches and great teammates. There are some memories you’ll keep for the rest of your life, whether it was in the locker room or shooting around with the guys on the ice or just going to the outdoor rink.
“It’s stuff I still love to do. That’s why I still love coming back to the Winter Classic with the Roughriders, because it’s that same feeling.”
The aforementioned “full-circle” feeling, to be specific.
“I just feel lucky at the end of the day to grow up admiring this game of football and these rural communities and everything they brought to hockey,” Zerr says. “And then I take all that admiration and get to do some of it.
“I remember bookmarking Labour Day Classics and looking up when the Saskatoon Blades were going to play. Now I get to play in the Labour Day Classic. Now I’m volunteering my time at the Blades game and doing fan events there.
“It is really cool to kind of be that hometown kid and feel the love here in Saskatchewan. It really does come pouring out.”
