BIGGAR — An RCMP officer who once played for the Brandon Wheat Kings has received a commendation for returning to duty after being injured during a mission in Saskatchewan.
Emergency Response Team sniper Brodie Melnychuk, 33, who played on the Wheat Kings until 2012, was awarded last month with the Commanding Officer’s Commendation for Service. It came because he returned to his post on a mission after being hit by someone who opened fire in the direction of his team in 2020.
It was just before midnight that his team was executing a drug warrant near Biggar. He said a dog caught on to their presence and began barking at them as they were approaching a tree line outside the house. It spurred a man to come out of the home with something in his hands, but Melnychuk could not see the object until the man opened fire.
“I dropped like a sack of sh–t. My left arm went numb. I knew I was hit, but I didn’t know by what,” said Melnychuk, who is a product of Balgonie. “There was 10 seconds there … definitely of the feeling of dread.”
Melnychuk was checking himself for a massive bleed, but found only numbness in one arm. The shooting stopped, and he was able to walk back to a medic about 500 metres away. The medic found a hole in his sweater and a scratch on his neck, but no serious damage.
The commendation came because of his next move, of returning to his post at the tree line. He said he’s grateful and honoured this year to get the recognition, but reflecting on that day, his actions seemed straightforward.
“I was fine. So once I was cleared, I just, not really even thinking at the time that it was anything out of the ordinary, I just went back to my sniper OP and basically did my job.”
He said the man believably explained the shots as an attempt to scare off a coyote. Since Melnychuk thinks the man could not have seen his team, he thinks this explanation is credible. And once the ERT declared itself, the man surrendered.
The drug warrant was executed without any other injuries, police reported in 2020. A release from RCMP said no other guns were fired during the event.
He added that his team members have done things he considers much more impressive and interesting — but that he’s happy the team received recognition for their work. He still does not know what hit him or caused his arm to go numb.
“Whether it was a piece of a rock or a fragment of the bullet, or the bullet itself, I don’t know, but something caught me.”
The former Wheat Kings defenceman said that his upbringing in the team environment of competitive hockey definitely contributed to his decision to become a sniper on the Emergency Response Team. Some big similarities are the teamwork, physicality and camaraderie.
“There’s definitely parallels between hockey and what I’m doing now,” he said. “It’s exactly what you’d expect from a professional sports team. There’s a team leader running things, and there’s, you know, 18 guys in the province that are all like-minded individuals that are in professional shape and working every day to get better at their trade.”
He said things came together for him when he was working as an RCMP officer. He was working in northern Saskatchewan when he saw the ERT on a mission and something struck a chord.
“I saw them, and … I saw how professional they were, I was like, that’s what I want to do,” he said. “After realizing that there’s still an elite team that a guy can be a part of through his career, it was, it was a no-brainer,” he said. “It’s definitely a good fit for a guy that spent his first 20 years playing hockey.”
