Latest Nurse family moment to be honoured by the Hockey Hall of Fame
You can probably expect that in the coming months, there will be a Nurse family visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
One of Canada’s greatest sports families of the past few decades, the Nurse family from Hamilton, Ontario, has certainly made their mark on the Canadian sporting scene.
The latest member of the family to add his stamp to the family legacy is Isaac Nurse, forging his way along for the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds men’s hockey team.
On Sunday, Nurse won his second successive national title, winning the U Cup with the Varsity Reds in Toronto as Canadian University champions with a 4-0 win over the UQTR Patriotes.
“To lift the trophy in the good old Maple Leaf Gardens… it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Nurse told Daily Hive following the game.
Isaac is the younger brother of Canadian national team and PWHL star Sarah, and former junior hockey player Elijah, as well as the cousin of Edmonton Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse, WNBA player Kia and former NCAA basketball player Tamika.Â
And while the trophy itself probably would’ve been a good enough way to end the weekend, Nurse scored the final goal of the competition, an empty net marker from his own end to cap off a remarkable season and tournament from the Reds.
Not only did the Reds outscore their opponents 15-0 across the three games of the tournament, but they finished the season undefeated — going a perfect 43-0 in the regular season and playoffs to end up with arguably the best single-year performance in Canadian university hockey history.
On the final goal of the U Sports season, Nurse’s helmet popped off on the play as a UQTR player hit him.
But while his helmet never went back on with so little time to play in the game as Nurse and his teammates continued the celebration on the bench, Nurse’s bucket will actually be immortalized in an upcoming display at the Hockey Hall of Fame in downtown Toronto.
Isaac Nurse’s bucket that fell off here (and a few other items from the U Cup) are heading to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
The “Joe” sticker honours the late Joe Glenn, who passed away last June at the age of 75. https://t.co/w8AoBMiTuy pic.twitter.com/RfRhxd1RV2
— Adam Laskaris (@adam_la2karis) March 18, 2024
With staff from the Hockey Hall of Fame on hand, they picked Nurse’s helmet as one of the artifacts they’ll take down to the famed museum.
“That’s tremendous,” Nurse said, learning his helmet would end up in the world’s biggest shrine to the sport. “That’s special. That’s something that down the road I’ll be able to go back and see it.”
As for the play itself? Nurse said he was looking to get the puck out of the zone, but was happy to add a little insurance to his team’s lead.
“It was just amazing to seal that there and end up with the win that we wanted,” Nurse said.
Canadian dominance
UNB has made 10 consecutive appearances at the U Cup, the longest-running current streak in Canada.
With hundreds of fans showing up in Toronto to see the team’s latest title, their head coach still seems to be enjoying the strong fan support despite having made 16 appearances — and nine national championship wins — at the tournament since taking over as head coach in 2001-02.
“It’s always really special,” UNB head coach Gardiner MacDougall added. “A lot of people are proud of what these guys bring when they perform.”
And even against Canada’s other top university squads, UNB still seemed to have no real trouble repeating as champions.
UQTR is no slouch themselves, having won three straight OUA titles to represent teams from Ontario and Quebec.
But despite plenty of success of their own, even UNB’s opponents in the final had no real choice but to pay their respects for the strength of the program the Varsity Reds have been able to build up under MacDougall, who has now won nine national titles with UNB.
“One of the biggest challenges in the history of our program,” UQTR coach Marc-Etienne Hubert said prior to the final. “This team seems to be unbeatable since the beginning of the year.”
As it turned out, the challenge was too great.
UNB opened the scoring a little under 10 minutes into the first period, added another some five minutes later, and controlled the pace of play for pretty much the remainder of the contest.
Part of UNB’s strengths come from a consistently strong recruiting class, pulling in players from across the country. Every single member of the UNB squad has experience in the Canadian Hockey League — the top level of junior hockey in the country – and they’ve parlayed that experience to build a team that hasn’t lost in over a calendar year, dating back to Game 3 of the 2023 AUS semifinal.
“They’re terrific,” TMU coach Johnny Duco said following his team’s 7-0 loss in the semifinal to UNB. “They’ve got four first lines and two starting goalies and six [defencemen] that would arguably be the best D on every team in our conference. It’s certainly impressive.”
Nurse’s commitment to UNB
Nurse won the 2017-18 OHL championship with the Hamilton Bulldogs, and was named the team’s captain the following year.
But Nurse’s final season of junior hockey in 2019-20 was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, like so many other players of his generation.
In June 2020, he officially committed to UNB, although the next season ended up being a practice-only year with no official games being played with COVID-19 restrictions still in place.
“At times, it didn’t look like a lot of hope. And it’s so neat to see those guys [that missed a year] that they stayed with the program,” MacDougall said of coaching during the cancelled 2020-21 season. “They get to enjoy the benefits [of staying with the team]… this is incredible.”
As for what drew him to New Brunswick, Nurse said the chance to compete for a national title helped draw him to the Atlantic province.
“The first phone call with [MacDougall] was just full of positivity and energy and I knew that if there was a school I wanted to go to and a place I wanted to go to… I couldn’t have picked a better place. It’s been tremendous the last four years,” Nurse said.
What’s next for Nurse’s hockey career?
With so much family history in pro sports, Isaac Nurse isn’t closing the book on perhaps turning pro one day himself. At 24, he’s the perfect age to join a pro team in North America or Europe, as many former U Sports players do.
For now, though, Nurse seemed most content with enjoying the big win.
“I definitely have those aspirations [to play pro]… but the focus right now is just going to celebrate with the boys and enjoy the rest of the night,” Nurse said.
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