When Chris Dennis took over the head coaching post with the York University men’s hockey team, he had a solid group of “character players” who were coming off a last-place finish the season before. Two seasons later, Dennis and his York Lions will be competing for an Ontario University Athletics championship on Saturday, the first time a York men’s team has qualified for a Queen’s Cup in 13 years. “To me, this has been a two-year process,” said the 37-yeard-old Dennis, who spent 10 years in the Leafs organization under the likes of Pat Quinn, Paul Maurice, Ron Wilson and Randy Carlyle. “When the new coaching staff took over, we had no time to recruit — we took the team we had,” Dennis said. “And we had a good team, good kids willing to work hard.

Source: thestar March 10, 2017 00:22 UTC