UNITY — The 340 people who purchased tickets to attend the Field of Dreams sports supper in Unity were able to enjoy a wonderful meal, visit with friends and neighbours, bid on a wide variety of silent and live auction items, and hear stories about life in local and the big leagues of hockey and baseball.
Wendel Clark highlights
Clark played minor hockey in his home town of Kelvington until the age of 13/14. The next two years, he said, “were probably my most improved years in hockey because I got so much ice time.” He continued to play in Kelvington, on both the midget and bantam teams, as well as playing AA (which now would be AAA) hockey in Yorkton. He also practised with the Kelvington senior team.
The Yorkton team commitment meant 100 miles of travel five times a week. Clark added, “and then on Mondays, I went to school … just Mondays,” eliciting a laugh from the crowd.
He went to Notre Dame where “I got coached by some of the best coaches in the world.” Although drafted – and called up – by the Saskatoon Blades at age 16, his family made him go back to finish his second year of midget with Notre Dame.
Not happy about it at the time, Clark now says it was “probably the best thing that ever happened to me.” At Notre Dame, he got to play in all kinds of situations, whereas in Saskatoon he would “probably have been the sixth defenceman.”
When he made the Canadian Junior team, he was asked to play forward – the first time he had ever done so. In the World Juniors, he played defence in three games and forward in three games. When he was drafted by the Maple Leafs of the NHL, he thought he was going to be a defenceman but on the first day of training camp, learned they wanted to put him in the left wing position.
Clark said, “So… I tell kids today, you always play every position, because who knows what position makes the team.”
Clark also spoke about how hard it is to make the move to professional hockey. He said when his son was 14, the team he played on was the best team in Canada. Today, those boys are 26 and not one is playing in the NHL.
“It is very hard to play at the highest professional level, so make sure you’re playing for fun, you’re playing for the right reasons, all the other things. Because making it is hard, but it is fun to try to make it … usually the person who loves it will always beat the person who likes it. You may have the most talent but if you like it, you won’t beat the guy who loves it, or the girl.”
He pointed out that, with the exception of Bobby Clarke of Manitoba, basically three provinces provided the players for the original six NHL teams – Quebec, Ontario and Saskatchewan. Today there are 32 NHL teams but players from some 17 or 18 countries are competing for the spots.
In the latter part of his career, Clark was traded several times, including to Tampa. Playing in Tampa was fun and the weather was great – “your body feels really good. I see why the players like playing in the south,” but his years in Toronto are “why I’m still here, talking about hockey 26 years after I played. Had I played in New Jersey, you wouldn’t know who I was …Everybody’s a Leafs fan, or Montreal, original six, one or the other.”
Andrew Albers highlights
Albers played in the North Saskatchewan River Baseball League from 2001 to 2001, so local baseball fans may have seen him on the pitcher’s mound in those years.
He was not expecting to be drafted and was on a Grade 12 field trip on draft day. His parents were waiting up when he got home at 1:30 a.m. When they told him the Milwaukee Brewers had called because they drafted him in the 12th round, he didn’t believe it at first.
He didn’t sign with the Brewers but played college ball at the University of Kentucky. Early on, he said he gave up 25 runs in 11 innings, and described it as “a great opportunity and got to learn from that.”
After starting his professional career with the San Diego Padres farm team, injuries derailed Alber’s career for a time. He said, “at the moment, it’s not good but it gives you a different perspective.” While he didn’t want to go through rehab, once back on the field, he realized “how fortunate” he was.
Albers spoke about inflection points in life, when things could go one way or the other and said he didn’t want to be thinking “what if …?” 10 years down the road. So he drove 46 hours from Phoenix, Arizona to the Minnesota Twins open tryouts in Florida, on his “own dime.”
The tryout went well and Albers said it was “a dream come true for a kid from Saskatchewan.” He was the first person from Saskatchewan to make the majors “since the Internet or since cellphones and that was really neat. I’ll never forget that feeling of pride that came, really from the entire province.”
“It was really neat to get text messages or get Facebook messages or things of that nature from people all over … It was just so awesome. You just hope as a small-town kid that you represent the province the right way … I’ll never forget that feeling of having that support,” he said.
Albers later played in Japan for a while, where he was teammates with Yoshinobu Yamamoto for three years. He said, “That guy’s really, really good …I know everybody wants to hate him but trust me, he’s an awesome guy. Just plays for the wrong team.” Yamamoto plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers and helped his team defeat the Toronto Blue Jays in the 2025 World Series.
The Field of Dreams sports supper was held in Unity Feb. 14.
