It doesn’t take a long conversation with Austin Shepherd to understand why Melfort Mustangs’ Head Coach Trevor Blevins wants him in the lineup every night.

Physical? Check. Anything for the team? Check. Skating? Check.

Simply put, he’s a winner.

“When you are on the farm, you are just expected to work hard,” says Shepherd.

“Everything has to be done a certain way and done right to operate. Otherwise, stuff could go wrong, someone could get hurt, or it just won’t work properly. It translates so clearly to my game: no matter what I am doing, I have to work and give it everything I have, whether it’s practice, in the gym, in a game or a skill skate; it just does not matter.

“The farm demands a standard, so that’s how I work as a hockey player, too.”

Shepherd’s family began Shepherd Acres five minutes outside Wilkie, SK, a town just over 50 kilometres southwest of the Battlefords, in the 1950s. The farm was passed from his great-grandparents to his grandparents, who are still there and work in lentils, wheat, and canola.

Shepherd is from Kerrobert, SK, 45 minutes away from the farm. His dad, Jerry, works on the oil rigs and is heavily involved in Kerrobert Minor Hockey, while his mom, Marli, is the town’s Recreation Director. Austin’s sister, Brooklyn, is a competitive archer and volleyball player, while his brother, Carson, is a goalie and a high school football player.

The Shepherds focus on their sports, work, and school in the fall and winter, but when spring and summer come around, it’s off to the farm for seeding.

Austin, now in his second full season with the Mustangs, has been used to this pattern of life since he was 12.

His hockey career has been one of patience and perseverance.

Never the biggest or most skilled, he hardly got looks at U18 AAA out of the 2019-2020 U15 season, and then the Covid Pandemic, like many, put his development and advancement on hold.

He stuck with the West Central Wheat Kings U18 AA in Kindersley, where he grew up watching the SJHL’s Klippers closely. Then he parlayed a solid 21-22 championship campaign with the Wheaties into a spot on the nearby Battlefords Stars U18AAA the following year.

Never drafted in the SJHL, he caught the eye of Blevins and his staff during the 22-23 season. The 5-foot-8 forward finished second on a Stars’ club full of current SJHLers, was signed, and played two games as an affiliated player.

His tenacity led him to a full-time spot on last year’s Mustangs and an important energy role on an eventual Canterra Seeds Cup championship and National Silver Medal-winning squad.

The ‘Hollywood’ nature of his rise is not lost on the confident yet humble Shepherd.

“I can’t even really put perfect words (to how great last year was),” he says.

“I came into my first year of junior hockey and my goal was just to make the team and see where it goes; that truly was my mentality the whole time. I just always wanted to play in the SJHL, so to do it, to go all the way to the Centennial Cup, it was just an unreal experience, and I couldn’t be happier than to do it with that team.”

Shepherd notes that the comraderies built with other hockey players with agricultural backgrounds, whether it’s with his fellow Mustangs, six of whom in the Melfort room are farmers, or anywhere the game takes him, is something he cherishes.

“It’s kind of funny,” he says, “you go out anywhere or whatever rink, and whenever you realize you and the person you’re talking to is into farming, you just instantly have someone you can easily have a conversation with.

“There is always someone in a rink in Saskatchewan that has an ag background,” he adds.

“Then you talk about it for hours, and it’s just a great thing in the communities to see that so many people are passionate about farming and the SJHL.”

The 2005 birth year can play another year for Melfort after this one, but he is clear that he would love to one day get into the family business.

“That the SJHL has those seed companies and ag business sponsoring the league is huge and makes so much sense for our league,” he says.

“An agricultural company sponsors our team’s third jerseys and goes to different events for the team. Well, it’s just pretty cool. It’s huge to have the faces of ag kids in the SJHL out there, and I am proud to be one of them.”

Through 17 games at the time of writing, Shepherd is well on his way to a career-high in points while maintaining the physical, energy style of play that got him in the Mustangs jersey in the first place.