Casey Knight of the University of Toronto Varsity Blues during play against the Ryerson Rams, Oct 16.Moe Doiron/The Globe and Mail
Hockey is Casey Knight's current passion, but chuckwagon racing is in his blood.
Knight is a 21-year-old rookie winger with the University of Toronto Varsity Blues.
During the summer months, when many of his fellow students head off to jobs waiting tables in restaurants or working in a mall in order to help pay tuition, Knight will head back to Alberta for a slightly more stimulating vocation: an outrider on the professional rodeo circuit.
"I've been doing it all my life," Knight said. "I grew up around the sport. There's no feeling like it."
Darren Lowe, a former Olympian who is in his 19th season as the Blues head coach, admits the cowboy/hockey combo is not something you come across every day.
"I'll tell you one thing, he's tough as nails," Lowe said.
Knight hails from small town St. Walburg, Sask., population 700, and his connection to chuckwagon racing is rooted in family.
His father, Ross Knight, uncle Jim Knight and cousin Wayne Knight are all successful competitors on the Canadian Professional Chuckwagon Association circuit.
With that kind of a family background, it was only natural Casey Knight would be drawn to the sport, and he has been competing as a professional outrider for the last four summers.
Knight, a tightly-packed 5-foot-11, 170-pound athlete, has also managed to juggle his off-season interest with playing hockey.
He joined U of T after competing in the Alberta Junior Hockey League, where he played for the Lloydminster Bobcats and Spruce Grove Saints.
When Lowe was recruiting Knight prior to this CIS season, he says he was not surprised to learn of the player's chuckwagon interests.
Kevin Deagle, a third-year forward with the Blues, is from Lethbridge, Alta., and has also dabbled at being an outrider. He played one season with Knight in Lloydminster three years ago, where they became fast friends and Knight first convinced him to have a crack at outriding.
"The first time I rode, I almost fell off the horse, but I absolutely loved it," Deagle said.
Chuckwagon racing is a staple at rodeo events and is especially popular in Canada's prairie provinces, where there are two major chuckwagon racing circuits with lucrative prize money up for grabs.
The biggest event is staged each year at the Calgary Stampede where the total prize money for the 10-day event is $1.5-million.
The stars of the races are the drivers – usually four per heat – who must command a team of four horses hitched to a chuckwagon as they thunder around two barrels in a figure eight before circling a racetrack.
The job of the outriders, two per team, is two-fold:
The duties of the lead outrider are to escort the racing team out onto the course while walking beside his own mount, and to help the team's driver get the proper alignment to pull around the first barrel.
The other outrider, commonly referred to as the "stove man," lingers back, standing beside his mount at the rear of the chuckwagon. His job is to throw a "stove" – usually a couple of buckets that have been moulded together and weigh less than 4.5 kilograms – into the back of the moving chuckwagon once the horn sounds to signal the start of the race.
At that point, both outriders have to hop on their already-moving mounts and charge around the course at full speed behind the chuckwagons.
It can be dangerous, to both man and beast, but also lucrative.
Daigle says it is not unheard of outriders earning more than $30,000 in prize money over the course of a summer.
Unranked nationally, the Blues have got off to a strong start in Ontario University Athletics – having knocked off the Western Mustangs and York Lions earlier in the season when both teams were ranked in the top 10 – and are 8-4 on the year, two points out of first place in the OUA West Division.
And the team got a little extra attention last month when goaltender Brett Willows was an emergency call up for the Toronto Maple Leafs during their NHL game against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Willows was needed as a backup for Jonathan Bernier, who had to enter the game in the first minute of the first period after starter James Reimer got hurt. (Toronto's farm team, the Toronto Marlies, were on the road in Rochester, N.Y., preparing for a game against the Americans.)
Willows was eating dinner on Bloor Street when he got the call and he rushed over to the Air Canada Centre in time for the start of the second period.
After he changed into his hockey gear, Willows remained in the Leafs dressing room for the rest of the game instead of being allowed on the bench.
"He stayed in the room because it was just a standby precautionary scenario," Leafs spokesman Pat Park wrote in an e-mail.