Published: Thursday, 18 November 2021 12:22 Written by David Zammit

A Swift Current Innovation Credit Union U18 Female AAA Wildcats defenceman will be staying close to home for her post-secondary studies.

The AAA club announced on Monday afternoon that Shelby Rublee has committed to the University of Regina for the 2022-23 season.

While it wasn’t the location that the Kindersley product had envisioned, the recruitment from the Cougars women’s hockey team won her over.

“I actually said I wanted to move far away from home and kind of get out of Saskatchewan, I was kind of looking at Calgary,” the fourth-year Wildcat said. “I was talking to other university’s and then I started talking to Sarah, I felt like Regina felt like the right place for me.”

Cougars Head Coach Sarah Hodges played a key role in convincing Rublee to take her talents to the Queen City.

“I started talking to Sarah probably last March,” she said. “We kind of stayed connected through the summer and stayed connected through this year and she was calling me probably every week or every other week. We stayed connected and that helped a lot for making a decision.”

Rublee has skated in 73 regular-season games for Swift Current since 2018 and is enjoying her best offensive campaign already just 10 games in scoring once and adding a trio of assists.

“It’s something to look forward to and motivate me for the rest of this year and the summer going into next year as well,” she said.

The left-shot defenceman will take a kinesiology degree and then is looking at potentially taking a two-year physical therapy program.