Waterloo goaltender Mathias Onuska earns Top 8 Academic All-Canadian honours
Mathias Onuska doesn’t shy away from the hardest job on the ice or in the classroom.
The University of Waterloo men’s hockey goaltender has built his game around the kind of moments that make most players uncomfortable, the ones where everything slows down and the outcome seems to sit on one stick, one shot, one read.
“I personally enjoy having the pressure, like I would prefer it,” Onuska said.
“I just like that I have the ability in some capacity to help my team win and kind of control the game a bit in that way.”
That mindset has translated into a season that put him among the elite in Canadian university sport and into recognition as a 2024-25 U SPORTS Top 8 Academic All-Canadian.
A third-year Honours Health Science student, Onuska posted a remarkable 96.7 per cent academic average, earning recognition as one of Waterloo’s top undergraduate student-athletes for a second consecutive year.
On the ice, he delivered a year that reshaped expectations. Onuska led the nation with a .941 save percentage and posted a 2.18 goals-against average, earning both OUA and U SPORTS Goaltender of the Year honours. His performances helped drive Waterloo’s success through the season and culminated with the Totzke Trophy as the Warriors’ men’s athlete of the year.
Ask him how he does it, how he balances late practices, travel, recovery and exams and Onuska turns the spotlight away from himself.
“Honestly, there’s not really a secret,” he said.
“I’ve been really fortunate to be in the environment that we have on our team. Our entire team really cares both academically and athletically.”
That culture, he said, creates accountability.
“We make sure that we’re accountable with one another and a lot of Sundays after games are spent doing school.”
The same steady approach shows up in how he describes his style in the crease. Not flashy or frantic, but controlled.
“I play really calm in the net,” he said.
“I’m really good at being able to square up to shots and read the play.”
That calmness wasn’t something he stumbled into by accident. Onuska grew up in Waterloo, the youngest in a family that was always active.
“We were always playing sports together,” he said of his siblings.
“We’d be playing soccer, basketball in the driveway or anything.”
It was there, chasing the pace set by his older brother and sister, that he learned to compete and learned the value of trying to keep up even when it wasn’t easy.
“Being the youngest really just pushed me to want to keep up with them,” he said.
Hockey started early, too. He said he began playing around five or six, often jumping into the net while his brother wanted shots in the driveway.
“My older brother was a player he would want to play in the driveway and I’d play goalie,” he said.
By the time he reached high school, he believed bigger levels might be possible.
“Once it was kind of entering high school, I thought maybe I’d be able to move on to something like the OHL,” he said.
He did. Onuska was drafted and later signed, spending time in the Ontario Hockey League with the London Knights and Windsor Spitfires before returning home to pair high-performance hockey with high-performance academics.
Coming back to Waterloo was more than a hometown choice. Onuska said he was drawn to the university’s reputation and to the standard set within the Warriors program.
“Waterloo was obviously a great school and I was really comfortable with the city,” he said.
“And how much Brian Bourque, the Head Coach of our program, is respected, I thought that it would be a perfect fit for me to get a great education at the school.”
His studies line up with where he hopes to go next. Onuska said he’s in the process of applying to dental school, describing Health Sciences as the right undergraduate route because it combines core science with a broader view of health.
“I thought Health Sciences would be a perfect undergraduate degree,” he said.
“I’ve really enjoyed my time learning not only the science stuff, but also more the public health stuff as well.”
His motivation for dentistry, fittingly, has roots in the rink. As a goalie, he’s seen what pucks, sticks and visors can do at close range and it stuck with him.
“Seeing guys get their tooth knocked out and stuff like that,” he said.
“One of my best buddies on my team broke his jaw. So there’s just a lot of cool things that I feel like dentists get to see and do.”
For Onuska, the same core habits run through everything, the patience of a goaltender waiting out a play, the repetition of studying until concepts land, the discipline to show up again the next day and do it over.
“I’ve truly learned that academics and athletics go kind of hand in hand,” he said.
“The same type of principles and values that can make you successful as an athlete or academically are very interchangeable.”
When the Top 8 honour came, Onuska framed it the same way he frames most things: as a reflection of the people around him.
“It’s really a privilege, a great honour,” he said.
“It’s attributed to all the people in my life that make that possible. My parents and teammates and coaches and everybody.”
Inside the Warriors room, he’s embraced leadership as part of the job, not through speeches, but through consistency.
“My biggest focus has been just trying to be as consistent as I can whether that’s my focus or warming up and doing the little things I can do,” he said.
Away from games, Onuska has built a resume of service that matches his performance and grades. He volunteers with KW Habilitation Farm, supports Indigenous hockey initiatives, assists with summer hockey camps, and serves as a Rise-Up Peer Mentor, helping first-year student-athletes transition into university life.
In that mentoring role, he said he’s found purpose in making the path smoother for someone else.
“Being a Rise-Up peer mentor has been a really cool experience,” he said.
“Being able to mentor other first-year student-athletes and help them adjust to both university athletics and academics.”
Part of that perspective comes from his own timeline. Onuska said he didn’t start university until he was 20, and the experience gave him a clear sense of how demanding the student-athlete schedule can be.
“I kind of realized how challenging it is to be a student-athlete,” he said.
“I really want to do something to help out maybe someone that’s newer to the experience.”
Volunteering, he added, isn’t something to squeeze in only when convenient, it’s a way to build community and perspective.
“Volunteering is invaluable for helping people and the experiences you gain,” he said.
“You can feel the effects of lending a helping hand.”