Award Season

Ok, we don’t need to talk about last weekend. St. Cloud is just a black hole of suck and unfortunately, tUMD gets pulled in time and time again. This weekend they’re back home for the playoffs with some mohawks. I’ll try to get a rundown of all the mohawk pics I can find.

But the WCHA awards happened! And good things happened for Bulldog players! Let’s go to the tape:

The official awards
Player of the Year: Jack Connolly
Defensive Player of the Year: Justin Schultz, UW
Rookie of the Year: Joey LaLeggia, DU
Outstanding Student-Athlete of the Year: Brad Eidsness, UND
Coach of the Year: Mel Pearson, MTU
Scoring Champion: Jack Connolly
WCHA Goaltending Champion: Kent Patterson, UMTC

First Team
F: Jack Connolly
F: JT Brown
F: Nick Bjugstad, UMTC
D: Justin Schultz, UW
D: Joey LaLeggia, DU
G: Kent Patterson, UMTC

Second Team
F: Jaden Schwartz, CC
F: Drew Shore, DU
F: Jason Zucker, DU
D: Gabe Guentzel, CC
D: Nate Schmidt, UMTC
G: Kenny Reiter

Third Team
F: Travis Oleksuk
F: Brock Nelson, UND
F: Mark Zengerle, UW
D: Nick Jensen, SCSU
D: Ben Blood, UND
G: Josh Thorimbert, CC

Freshman Team:
F: Kyle Rau, UMTC
F: Jean-Paul Lafontaine, MSUM
F: Jayson Megna, UNO
D: Joey LaLeggia, DU
D: Andrew Prochno, SCSU
G: Juho Olkinuora, DU

Academic Team:
Jack Connolly* (Communication)
Aaron Crandall* (Marketing)
Keegan Flaherty* (Finance)
David Grun* (Finance)
Jake Hendrickson (Mechanical Engineering)
Luke McManus (Business)
Kenny Reiter* (Finance)

*indicates repeat offender

The unofficial awards
Thanks to Chad from A Tradition of Excellence for his work on organizing and tallying the ballots. Please click over there to see the participants. He notes there are 3 defencemen on the first team because Blood and LaLeggia tied. If my vote differed, I have put it in parentheses.

Player of the Year: Jack Connolly
Defensive Player of the Year: Justin Schultz, UW
Rookie of the Year: Joey LaLeggia, UW
Coach of the Year: Mel Pearson, MTU (Scott Sandelin)

First Team
F: Jack Connolly
F: JT Brown
F: Brock Nelson, UND (Mark Zengerle)
D: Justin Schultz, UW
D: Joey LaLeggia, DU (I had him 2nd team)
D: Ben Blood, UND
G: Kent Patterson, UMTC

Second Team
F: Jason Zucker, DU
F: Drew Shore, DU (Travis Oleksuk)
F: Nick Bjugstad, UMTC (Jaden Schwartz)
D: Nate Schmidt, UMTC (Nick Jensen)
G: Josh Thorimbert, CC (Kenny Reiter)

Third Team
F: Jaden Schwartz, CC (Nick Bjugstad)
F: Mark Zengerle, UW (Drew Shore)
F: Travis Oleksuk (Brock Nelson)
D: Nick Jensen, SCSU (Nate Schmidt)
D: Brady Lamb
G: Kenny Reiter (Josh Thorimbert)

All-WCHA Rookie Team
F: Kyle Rau, UMTC
F: Caleb Herbert
F: Jean-Paul LaFontaine, MSUM (Blake Pietila, MTU)
D: Joey LaLeggia, DU
D: Andrew Prochno, SCSU
G: Juho Olkinuora, DU (Ryan Faragher, SCSU)

Lots of honors for our dear Bulldogs! I’m especially proud of the academic honorees!