Ron Kulych sits in his Porter Creek home looking somewhat disheveled as he attempts to deconstruct his hockey career.

Newspaper clippings and grainy-looking photos fill two scrapbooks splayed open on his coffee table.

"Looking back, it was a blur to me. You're going to school, everything was fast-paced back then, coming from Whitehorse.

"I enjoyed playing the hockey. It was a great learning experience.”

He's talking about his time as a defenceman for the Red Deer College Kings during their historic run more than 30 years ago.

Members of the 1976-1977, 1978-1979 and 1979-80 Kings are being inducted into the Alberta Hockey Hall of Fame at the Capri Hotel and Convention Centre in Red Deer on June 11.

Yukoners Ray Hall and George Wright were also members of the national-championship winning Kings.

Kulych first joined the Red Deer team for the 1977-1978 season, when they won the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) championship en route to picking up a silver medal in the Canadian Colleges Athletic Association (CCAA) final against the College of Cape Breton Capers.

But the previous season and the subsequent two seasons – the Kings were national champions.

Kulych received a letter dated May 3 from Kings head coach Allan Ferchuk informing him of the induction ceremony.

"I haven't really thought of it,” Kulych said yesterday, as the Vancouver Canucks-San Jose Sharks game played in the background.

"I think this is pretty important. I don't think there are too many guys that get inducted into the sports end of it, especially all of Alberta. To be recognized that way, and be a part of that, I think that's a pretty good thing.”

Yeah, pretty good.

During the four seasons between 1976 and 1980, the Kings became the first team to appear in four consecutive CCAA national championship gold medal games and the first team in the ACAC to finish first in the regular season for five consecutive campaigns, according to the RDC Kings nomination by Brian Stein, Alberta Colleges hockey historian.

In each of their national championship seasons, the Kings placed first in the regular season and led the league with the most goals for and the fewest goals against, the document reads.

The Kings won 78, lost 15 and tied two for a .832 winning percentage during their three regular seasons and post seasons en route to the championship.

The team also stole a tie off eventual CIAU champions the University of Alberta Golden Bears in an exhibition series.

The Golden Bears boasted future NHLers and Olympians Dave Hindmarch and Randy Gregg.

They were tough players, Kulych said.

"(Gregg) was very mean. He was a big boy,” Kulych said.

"You stood in front of the net, you knew it.

"You learned your lesson quickly.”

In 1980, Kulych scored two in the Kings 10-3 win over the Assiniboine Community College Cougars in the 4-West Championships in Winnipeg to reach the CCAA nationals.

He added another in the final of the CCAA championship against the College of Cape Breton Capers.

But Kulych relies more on the scrapbooks – compiled by his sister Vickie Dawe – than his memory to remind him of what transpired.

He even consults the records for his height and weight at the time: five foot seven inches and 178 pounds in his first year; five foot nine inches and 190 pounds in his second.

He does remember the weight training, however.

"I was a smaller guy on the team,” Kulych said.

"My coach, to this day, he even says I wasn't much of a skater back when I went to college, but I worked at it, and I had intensity on the ice. I'd give 110 (per cent) and hit everything in sight, and that's pretty well what got him to keep me.”

Kulych walked on to the team the first year after showing up to dry-land camp with more than 60 players vying for 19 jobs.

Then it was a matter of continually proving that he deserved to play.

"You didn't produce, you sat. Pretty simple rules,” Kulych said. "You worked your way to playing. There was a lot of character. A lot of character.”

That character pulled the team through each stage on the road to the national championship.

Kulych said the first run was perhaps the most memorable.

"Just getting out of Western small colleges was a big deal.

"When you go out of Alberta to the Westerns, and then once you get out of the Westerns to go to the (national) championship – that was a big thing.”

One big event followed another for Kulych, who was invited to the Edmonton Oilers rookie camp in 1980.

Shortly after being cut, he returned to the Yukon to become an integral part of Whitehorse's hockey community.

He currently helps coach the Midget Mustangs, where his son Brayden is a key member.

Now begins the process of reconnecting with teammates, including his cousin, former Kings goaltender John Kulych.