Fedorchuk to Join Nanook Hall of Fame

An old friend of mine, Dean Fedorchuk, will be feted with the ultimate honor from the University of Alaska Fairbanks next month, 20 years after he played his final game for the Blue and Gold.

The Nanooks’ second all-time leading scorer with 215 points and their all-time leading goal scorer with 113 goals, the Winnipeg native will be inducted into the Nanook Hall of Fame in late September along with former UAF head coach Guy Gadowsky, now the head coach at Penn State after a seven-year spell at Princeton.

Fedorchuk, who played professionally in Europe for 14 seasons after North American stints with Kalamazoo (IHL) and Dayton (ECHL), was one of the most exciting players to ever appear in a Nanook uniform. I should know—I was working at UAF and had the privilege of watching him score 29 goals as a sophomore in 1991-92, including a hat trick and then a spectacular buzzer-beating marker against rival Alaska Anchorage at the Carlson Center in Fairbanks.

The Nanooks’ No. 3 collected a nation-high 42 goals as senior in 1993-94 when he was also a First-Team All-America selection and a Hobey Baker Memorial Award finalist. No NCAA Division I player has scored 40 goals in a single season since. Fedorchuk also tied for the national scoring lead with teammate Tavis MacMillan that season with 74 points as the Nanooks finished 24-13-1 and boasted one of the top power-plays in the nation. MacMillan, a former Nanook player, assistant coach and head coach, was inducted into the Nanook Hall of Fame in 2009.

Fedorchuk later played seven seasons in Germany, where he tallied 185 goals and 361 points in 298 games. He spent his first five years there with Neuweid EHC where he recorded back-to-back campaigns of 82 and 96 points in his first two campaigns, respectively. He later went on to play seven seasons in Denmark, and has also served as a scout with his hometown Winnipeg Jets.

Fedorchuk also coached for three years in Denmark and another in Sweden, before ultimately taking an assistant coaching position in Croatia with Medvescak Zagreb (KHL), where he remains today. He still summers in Fairbanks, where he runs the annual ALCAN Hockey Camps , and will be the third UAF hockey player to be inducted into the Nanook Hall of Fame along with MacMillan and all-time leading scorer Steve Moria.

Congrats, Feds!