PROFILE
CHANNING
BRESCIANI
BY CARTER BROOKS
Photo by Jeff Miller
7 8 | G AME O N | D EC EM BER 2017
Bresciani and
the Bisons’ best
This season’s University
of Manitoba men’s hockey
team just might be the best
Bisons squad in five years.
After icing .500 teams
since the 2012-13 season,
the 2017-18 version of The
Herd has much promise.
Featuring a 27-man roster
with only eight players
listed under six feet tall,
the Bisons are a monstrous
team. And with a relatively
young squad, coaches Mike
Sirant, Rick St. Croix and
Ryan Bonni have also been
able to implement strategies
and game plans that could
last multiple seasons.
Bisons’ defenseman
Channing Bresciani –
who has been with the
program for four years –
can already feel just how
special this year’s team
is shaping up to be.
“In all honesty, this is
probably the best team that
I have been on as a Bison,”
Bresciani said. “Some may
say that it’s me saving my
best for last, but I just think
that we’ve got everything. We
have skill, we have speed, and
we have guys that will hit.
We were always just missing
one of those components in
my last three years. But this
year I think we have the total
package and have a lot of
potential to win games, so it’s
looking good. The leadership
is there, the goal scorers are
contributing, we’re getting
good goaltending… I think
this year will be a good one.”
If anyone could predict
how the season will turn
out, it would be the 24-year-
old Bresciani. The 6-foot,
180-pound, fourth-year
defender grew up in northern
Manitoba and learned to
skate on the backyard rink
that his dad would flood
with a hose every night.
“I’m originally from
Thompson,” he said. “I lived
right in town until I was
about four-years-old, when
my dad’s work as an RCMP
officer brought us down here
to Winnipeg. That rink in
our backyard definitely got
me going in hockey. I sta rted
skating with my older sisters
when I was two. I remember
wheeling around with them,
just chasing them all over the
place on that rink. I started
off by chasing them with a
chair, and then I gradually
escalated to just chasing
them with a hockey stick.”
Although it started with
his four sisters, it’s now
university opponents whom
Bresciani chases around