The College Hockey Blog National Awards
By Fetch
Let’s jump right into it. The College Hockey Blog is happy to award our first ever national player of the year award to Air Force’s Jacques Lamoureux. The Sophomore from Grand Forks, North Dakota led college hockey with 33 goals, and he added 20 assists for Air Force, which won Atlantic Hockey for a 3rd straight year and won a game in the NCAA Tournament for the first time. Lamoureux’s 53 points ranked 2nd only to Brian Leitch of Quinnipiac.
Lamoureux won our player of the year award by a healthy margin over the next closest candidate, Colin Wilson of BU.
Our coach of the year award was a bit tougher to figure. For the finalists, I used the same as the Penrose Award finalists. Those are:
"Keith Allain, YaleEnrico Blasi, MiamiGreg Cronin, NortheasternDallas Ferguson, AlaskaDave Hakstol, North DakotaJack Parker, Boston UniversityTom Serratore, Bemidji StateKevin Sneddon, VermontRyan Soderquist, Bentley"
For starters, let’s toss out a couple that don’t belong right away. Bentley was a good team, but a top 4 Atlantic Hockey finish doesn’t scream COY to me. Alaska had a good season, but they were 54th nationally in offense. That’s not good coaching, it’s great goaltending by Chad Johnson. Jack Parker took the most talented team in the country to the Frozen Four. That’s what you’re supposed to do. And Tom Serratore built his candidacy on 2 games. So those guys are out.
Out of the remainders (Enrico Blasi, Keith Allain, Greg Cronin, Dave Hakstol and Kevin Sneddon) I’ll narrow it down to Hakstol and Sneddon. Although regular season accomplishments carry tremendous weight with me, and North Dakota didn’t have the talent this year they have in past years, Vermont having their season in a tougher conference plus making a Frozen Four gives our first ever coach of the year award to Kevin Sneddon.
Finally, our national freshman of the year was a no brainer. Minnesota’s Jordan Schroeder led all Freshmen with 45 points, even while missing some time while being away at the World Junior Championships in Ottawa. Schroeder’s talent has propelled him into being almost a guaranteed Top 10 pick in this summer’s NHL entry draft.
Our first, second and third team All-American teams are after the jump.
First Team
F- Jacques Lamoureux, Air Force
F- Colin Wilson, Boston U.
F- Brock Bradford, Boston College
D- Jamie McBain, Wisconsin
D- Matt Gilroy, Boston U.
G- Chad Johnson, Alaska
Second Team
F- David McIntyre, Colgate
F- Viktor Stalberg, Vermont
F- Ryan Stoa, Minnesota
D- Chay Genoway, North Dakota
D- Ian Cole, Notre Dame
G- Brad Thiessen, Northeastern
Third Team
F- MacGregor Sharp, Minnesota-Duluth
F- Aaron Palushaj, Michigan
F- Ryan Duncan, North Dakota
D- Greg Flynn, Air Force
D- Patrick Wiercoch, Denver
G- Zane Kalemba, Princeton