Three decades ago, Dave King saw something in his soon-to-be-graduated University of Saskatchewan Huskies captain.
It wasn’t so much the on-ice exploits of Willie Desjardins, a 5-foot-8, 160-lb. centreman who had led King’s team to a CIAU national championship in 1982-83, been named a Canada West conference all-star four times and, to this day, still sits fourth on the program’s all-time scoring list with 189 points.
It was more about the way Desjardins approached the game and could talk through different scenarios and gameplans with ease.
It was clear he had a little bit of an early-onset coach in him.