‘It’s a special accomplishment’: Heggie on Kodiaks punching ticket to nationals

By Lethbridge Herald on March 12, 2026.

Nathan Reiter

Lethbridge Herald

For the first time since 2017, the Lethbridge Polytechnic Kodiaks are off to the CCAA men’s basketball national championship.

Lethbridge earned the berth with a second place finish at the ACAC men’s basketball championship in Lloydminster last weekend. 

Kodiak head coach Ryan Heggie says Lethbridge played some of their best basketball of the season.

“It’s a special accomplishment. It’s so hard to do, there’s so many good teams and so many good players, coaches that you have to compete against to be able to put it together in one weekend.” 

“I’m pretty excited about the weekend overall. We went into the tournament ranked 4th out of 8. We were a two seed in the South, but we were ranked 4th of the ranked teams in the country. We couldn’t get the championship done. We wanted to hang a banner and cut down the nets and all that stuff. But we just got beat in the finals and the guys played through the wall all weekend. I couldn’t have asked for any more effort out of the group.”

The calling card of the Kodiaks all season has been strong defensive play and the same rang true over the weekend. Lethbridge held the NAIT Ooks to just 61 points in the quarterfinal on Thursday and held the host Lakeland Rustlers to only 67 points in the semifinal.

“We definitely lived up to our pre-tournament identity against NAIT and Lakeland.” Heggie said. “We were really connected in our defensive systems the first two games, and being able to hold the host team to 67 points in front of a packed gymnasium at times, hostile environment, but we never trailed throughout the game.”

The win over Lakeland secured a nationals berth for the Kodiaks, but they still had an ACAC banner to play for on Saturday against the Keyano College Huskies. It was a surprise to many that the Huskies were in the final as they defeated the SAIT Trojans in their semi-final. SAIT was ranked number one in the country and had not lost a game in ACAC conference play all season long.

The Huskies would keep that momentum rolling in the final, defeating the Kodiaks 86-79 to capture their second ACAC championship in the past three years.

“The Keyano team was ready.” Heggie explained. “They were ready for our defensive systems, and they stretched us out a bit, and we had to make adjustments and switch up our defense, and I thought the guys really adjusted well. We gave up more baskets, but we had the lead in that game for a few minutes in the mid-third quarter, and that game was a winnable game throughout, so it was a bit higher scoring, but we still played a really good game. Keyano just played better that night, congratulations to them.”

The Kodiaks will practice this week before departing for the CCAA national championships in Nanaimo, B.C. beginning next Wednesday, Mar. 18. The Kodiaks will match up with the host VIU Mariners in the quarterfinal.

Heggie says the Kodiaks are excited for the opportunity to represent Lethbridge on a national stage.  

“It’s always nice to have more basketball and with the structure of our tournament, once you get to the tournament, there is a lot of parity in our tournament. SAIT has an undefeated program and it really showed the strength of our conference that two teams that were not ranked number one, going in are heading to the national tournament. I’ve been on the other end of being a favorite at this tournament as well and not coming out as a representative for nationals. I’ve seen both sides of the fence, for sure. It’s definitely March Madness, that’s for sure.”

See next Tuesday’s Herald for a full preview of the CCAA men’s basketball championships.