By Nathan Kanter

Constant improvement focus for North Stars’ Kleiboer

Nov 30, 2016 | 9:02 AM

Last week, North Stars defenceman Levi Kleiboer thought he’d been traded.

“We just finished yoga and I got a text from [head coach] Nate [Bedford] and it was saying, ‘Can you call me when you get a second please?’” Kleiboer remembered. “And I said to [teammate] Taryn [Kotchorek]… I was like, ‘man, did I get traded?’”

As it turned out, the truth was far from it.

“[Nate] was like, ‘I don’t know if you’ve checked your emails or not but you’ve been selected to try out for team Canada West.”

Kleiboer immediately smiled, relieved.

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“I was like, ‘wow, that’s a big accomplishment for me,’” he said.

Indeed, a big accomplishment to be invited to selection camp for the 2016 Junior A challenge, but not all that surprising given the 18-year-old from Martensville, Sask., has tallied 21 points this season, good enough for fifth in the SJHL in scoring among defencemen. His 21 points are already as many as he had all of last season in 39 games. His lone goal last year, interestingly enough, was in the first game of the season into an empty net.

Kleiboer has gotten a lot of power play time this season, but it’s perhaps his poise with the puck at even strength, carrying it out of his own end, when he stands out the most. He and Cody Spagrud have formed perhaps the most reliable pairing on the team, and have played pretty much every game this season together thus far.

“I love playing with Spags,” Kleiboer said. “We definitely know where each other are on the ice and it’s just really good. I love it.”

The two only played a handful of games together last season but others are taking notice of the duo’s chemistry this year, as Spagrud was also invited to try out for Canada West next week in Leduc, Alta.

Kleiboer, whose dad played junior B hockey in Hudson Bay, Sask. back in the day, hopes to get a scholarship to play hockey at an American university when he’s done Junior A. When he attends camp next week that will partly be on his mind.

“Those guys [at selection camp] who have those Division 1 scholarships, which is where I want to be, what I want to get, [I can] compare myself to them and kind of learn off them,” Kleiboer said. “See what I’ve got to do to get to their level and get to that next level.”

Constantly improving is something that seems to always be on Kleiboer’s mind.

He knows he’s a good puck mover and he also knows that some parts of his game need work.

“I’m probably better at my offence, I’ve just got to work on my defence a little bit,” he said.

Perhaps that mentality can be credited to his early days.

When Kleiboer was first put on skates at five years old, he remembers he wasn’t very good. Or, as he puts it, he was “the worst person ever.”

“There were one or two people who couldn’t skate without a chair to push around and I was one of them and the other kid actually quit. So I was officially the worst person ever,” he recalled with a chuckle. “At a tournament that year my parents won a package for a hockey camp called Canadian Ways so I started going to Canadian Ways and eventually two years later I was probably one of the top two players on my team.”

Eleven years after first stepping on the ice, he was debuting for the North Stars against a dangerous Melfort Mustangs team thanks to a call up in Feb. 2015.

Kleiboer was suiting up for the Beardy’s Blackhawks midget AAA team that season and remembers being paired with fellow Martensville native Dawson Boehm in his SJHL debut.

“All that [coach] Kevin [Hasselberg] really said was Melfort is good, because they had Travis Mayan, they had all those guys,” Kleiboer said. “I got a couple shifts against them, which was very intimidating but I think I held my own, so that was good.”

There’s little doubt that Kleiboer looks right at home lining up against the best in the SJHL this season and he’s even got two more years of eligibility left.

In fact, head coach Nate Bedford, who speaks very highly of Kleiboer’s offensive skills, actually mentioned his ability to defend 1-on-1 is one of the things that stands out to him.

“Trying to beat him 1-on-1 is nearly impossible,” Bedford said. “He’s got an exceptional skill set, especially on the offensive end. He’s got good feet, he really has got good offensive vision for a defenceman.”

Off the ice, Kleiboer enjoys the outdoors.

This week, because it’s deer season, he and a couple of teammates have been busy right from the end of practice until evening.

“Me and some of the guys have been…looking for that big buck,” he said. “Last week, deer season opened and it closes next Friday. Troy [Gerein] and Logan [Naghtegaele] already got their big bucks so hopefully we get ours.”

Nathan Kanter is battlefordsNOW’s sports reporter and voice of the Battlefords North Stars. He can be reached at Nathan.Kanter@jpbg.ca or tweet him @NathanKanter11.