Forty years ago this week, a CCAA team won an international hockey tournament as it ascended to the apex with record setting championship runs at the provincial and national levels.

The 1983-84 NAIT Ooks became the first team from Canada to win the highly acclaimed Viking Cup International Hockey Tournament with a 3-0 triumph over the Czechoslovakian Junior Selects in the gold medal game on January 3rd, 1984 at Camrose, Alberta.

The Ooks entered the event riding a three game winning streak against conference rivals in regular season play.  Following the tournament, NAIT would win an additional 49 games against conference competition in regular season and post season action over the next 20 months and became the ACAC's first hockey team to win three straight championships before extending the run to four.

The success at the Viking Cup led to the team's first European tour a year later which included three players who would don jerseys with European teams after college. One of the defenseman on the 1983-84 squad, Jamie Bartman, played and coached in Europe following three seasons with NAIT.

While the 1981-82 NAIT Ooks were the first national champions in any sport on campus, the 1983-84 edition augmented the stature of the hockey program and the athletic department. The Viking Cup triumph was sandwiched between noteworthy milestones. On September 30th, 1983, the Ooks became the first NAIT team in any sport to defeat their crosstown nemesis, the University of Alberta Golden Bears, posting a 4-3 win at the NAIT Arena. On March 9th, 1984, the Ooks completed a sweep of the Red Deer College Kings in the best of five ACAC championship final series to become the first NAIT team to compete at nationals as conference champions.

Although the Ooks did not medal at the 1984 CCAA National Hockey Championships, the heartbreaking setback sparked the Ooks to back to back national titles in 1985 and 1986 during the conference championship run which included wins over the eventual CIAU champion en route.

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