ASSINIBOIA — Lafleche native Cal Filson played for the Assiniboia Rebels from 1992-96, and was team captain 1995-96 when the team won the first Western Canadian Jr. B Championship, held in British Columbia.
Filson has scouted in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League for Flin Flon and Estevan before making the jump to the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League, doing eight seasons with the T-birds as director of player personnel, in addition to building the T-birds into a championship team.
In 2023, Filson accepted a position with the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks as a western amateur scout.
Born in Lafleche in 1975, Filson once played for the Avonlea Arrows, Semans Wheat Kings and home town Lafleche Flyers. The NHL scout grew up on a farm south of Woodrow, attending school in Lafleche.
Filson said, “My biggest mentors were my dad, Duane Filson, my junior coaches, Chic Volsky and Jim Willis, and my first bosses with the Seattle Thunderbirds, Russ Farwell and Colin Alexander.”
The former Lafleche resident said he got into scouting because of his lifelong love of hockey and discovering there were actual jobs in hockey that he could do.
“I was working full time as director of sales at jump.ca in Regina and ended up getting a job as an area scout for the Flin Flon Bombers of the SJHL, then for the Seattle Thunderbirds of the WHL. After six years of scouting for Seattle just around the Regina area, my boss, Colin Alexander, took a job with the Pittsburgh Penguins, allowing me to take over for him in October of 2015.”
In his time with the Seattle Thunderbirds, the team went to the WHL Championship four times and won the WHL Championship twice.
It was from there Filson was contacted by the Chicago Blackhawks in 2023 asking if he would be interested in becoming a scout for them in the 2023-24 season.
2024 marks the start of Filson’s 10th season of scouting full-time and his second season with the Blackhawks organization.
Filson attended the Southern Rebels training camp in early September. Stating that Curtis Nelson reached out to him in 2023 to see if there was anything Filson could offer to help the Rebels, the Lafleche native said he was happy to help in any way that he could.
“For the last two seasons I have talked to the kids in training camp, and helped the team explain what kind of players the Rebels are looking for, on and off of the ice,” added Filson.
The hockey scout lives in Regina with his wife, Megan Willis, who is from Assiniboia.
“We spend a good chunk of our summers at Thomson Lake where my parents live, and her parents spend a large part of their summers. I love being able to help out in any way that I can with the local hockey community. I really like being able to talk to the kids to help them short term with what they can do right now to help their careers, and long term to show them that there is a path to working in the NHL, even after they are done playing,” Filson says.
The Blackhawks hockey scout said in his years of scouting, he has had the pleasure of watching quality players in Saskatchewan. Two were drafted to Seattle and have gone on to play in the NHL. These players are Ethan Bear of Ochapowace, who currently plays for the Washington Capitals, and Kevin Korchinski from Saskatoon who plays for the Chicago Blackhawks.
“What I look for in players is pretty simple and straightforward. They have to be skilled; they have to be able to skate, they have to be smart, or have good hockey sense, they have to compete, and they have to have good character.,” affirms Filson.
In addition to several notable Lafleche residents who went on to political careers, Filson joins another notable former Lafleche resident in a sports career. Larry Dumelie was a defensive back for the Saskatchewan Roughriders from 1960-67 and was a member of their Grey Cup-winning team of 1966.
