St. John’s, Newfoundland-ย Blake Gustafson might be guilty of spearing, but this time, it won’t land him in the penalty box.
The longtime WHLer and current Alberta Golden Bears defenceman is temporarily ditching the skates and hockey stick as he pursues his other sporting passion- javelin.
Gustafson is representing Alberta at the Canada Summer Games after rediscovering his love for the sport over the offseason.
“It’s an excellent release,” Gustafson said. “You go full tilt for eight seconds, and then you yell and you throw, and you get to watch it fly. I also have an increasingly large respect for throwers and track athletes as a whole. When I got into it at the start of summer, I thought it was just going to be about getting stronger and getting more powerful, but there’s so much technique that goes into it. It’s similar to golf, almost. If you don’t connect all the dots properly, the javelin is not going to fly straight and far.”
The Ardrossan, Alta. product picked up the sport in junior high while playing minor hockey.
Those worlds wouldn’t collide until he was 16 years old and qualified for the provincial track and field championship- which was going on at the same time as Red Deer Rebels training camp.
“I was at camp in Red Deer at the time for the Rebels when provincials were going on, and provincials were in Red Deer as well for javelin, but I wasn’t on the team yet,” Gustafson recalled. “It was the summer going into my 16-year-old year, my first year of true eligibility. I really wanted to throw, but I was scared because we had a team pilates session at the same time. So my parents were trying to convince me to go up to (General Manager and Head Coach) Brent Sutter and ask, and I was terrified. And then I did, and he was super accepting about it. He was very positive, just talking about how he supports multi-sport athletes. So I missed the pilates session, went and threw in Red Deer with my dad, won it, and then went back.”
Not only would he go on to play parts of five seasons with the Rebels and the Saskatoon Blades, Gustafson would also repeat as the provincial javelin champion in his Grade 11 year.
First to 30!!!
Ben King becomes @TheWHLโs first 30 goal scorer this season thanks to a great pass from Blake Gustafson.#RDREBELS #WHL pic.twitter.com/p6djJrxJ2Z
— Red Deer Rebels (@Rebelshockey) January 29, 2022
He would’ve gone for the provincial championship hat trick, had the COVID-19 pandemic not halted competition and, temporarily, his throwing pursuits.
For the past two seasons, Gustafson has been focused on his science and kinesiology studies while playing hockey at the University of Alberta, where he’s currently the president-elect of the University Athletics Board.
Fellow board member and track athlete Barrett Groves connected Gustafson with fellow kinesiology student and javelin thrower Nikolai Tchesnokov, who has helped Gustafson bring his game to new heights in a sport that fosters community and support even against your biggest competitors.
“I was telling them about how I used to throw back in high school and how I always wanted to get back into it, but didn’t know the right channel to do that,” Gustafson added. “I met with Nick and we practiced for two or three weeks, and we had our first competition, and that was when I threw that 60.4 meter throw, which was a personal best. It got me the standard to qualify for nationals. So after that, it’s been full on. He and I have been leaning into it. It’s been a really interesting, fun dynamic because I’m three years older than him and we’re classmates. We both have kinesiology degrees, our knowledge is developing about sports science, and we have a very mutual understanding of how much I should be putting in and when I should be resting.”
The solo nature of the sport has also given him the ability to manage javelin training, hockey training, and extracurricular research at a local hospital.
Now, Gustafson has landed in St. John’s to test his mettle against the top competitors in the country, meet new people and experience the beauty and culture of Newfoundland.
It’s the furthest east he’s been in his life, having made it as far as Winnipeg, Man., in his WHL days.
He’s aiming to set a personal best when he steps on the runway on Wednesday, August 19, and, hopefully, in the finals on Friday, August 22.
๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ฑ ๐๐ช ๐ ๐๐๐ฌ ๐๐ผ๐บ๐บ๐๐ป๐ถ๐๐ ๐ฆ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฒ ๐๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฑ
Strong work ethic, on-and-off the ice.
Alberta's Blake Gustafson is honoured for his commitment to fostering volunteerism within the universityโs student-athlete community! pic.twitter.com/GFRhx1YRiw
— Canada West (@CanadaWest) March 4, 2025
No matter how the Canada Summer Games shake out, Gustafson hopes to stay active in javelin even while he returns to school, hockey and his volunteer work (he even won the 2024-25 Canada West Community Service Award for building out programs like the Golden Bears’ Teddy Bear Toss).
“There’s always a side mission,” Gustafson laughed. “I’ve always got something going on or doing something that kind of pushes myself. The Javelin is definitely going to be a permanent thing. I really enjoy it, and as long as I can stay competitive, I think it’s fun. There are people at our meets who are 50, 60 years old, and they’re just competing against themselves, staying healthy and I admire that. So maybe it’ll be a lifelong passion.”
But he believes none of this would have been possible if it weren’t for one fateful missed training session in Red Deer nearly a decade ago.
“Brent could have said no to me about going to throw in provincials. If I didn’t win in grade 10… That was my first big success doing it. I might not have thought to go back to it now. So I’m forever thankful, and I still think about it all the time that he was the guy who enabled me to try it out and miss a camp before I was even on the team- and now it’s turned into something that hopefully will bring me some places.”
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