WCHA Awards Announced

Here is the release.

Player of the Year: Jamie McBain, Wisconsin

Outstanding Student-Athlete: J.P. Testwuide, Denver

Defensive Player of the Year: Chay Genoway, North Dakota

Rookie of the Year: Jordan Schroeder, Minnesota

Scoring Champion: Ryan Stoa, Minnesota

Goaltending Champion: Alex Stalock, Minnesota-Duluth

Coach of the Year: Dave Hakstol, North Dakota

All-WCHA First Team: Ryan Stoa, Minnesota, Chad Rau, Colorado College, Ryan Lasch, St. Cloud, Jamie McBain, Wisconsin, Chay Genoway, North Dakota, Alex Stalock, Minnesota-Duluth

All-WCHA Second Team: Ryan Duncan, North Dakota, Jordan Schroeder, Minnesota, Justin Fontaine, Minnesota-Duluth, Patrick Wiercioch, Denver, Garrett Raboin, St. Cloud, Marc Cheverie, Denver

All-WCHA Third Team: Garrett Roe, St. Cloud, Rhett Rakhshani, Denver, Anthony Maiani, Denver, Josh Meyers, Minnesota-Duluth, Kurt Davis, Minnesota State, Brad Eidsness, North Dakota

All-Rookie Team: Jordan Schroeder, Minnesota, Joe Colborne, Denver, Mike Connolly, Minnesota-Duluth, Patrick Wiercioch, Denver, Jake Gardiner, Wisconsin, Brad Eidsness, North Dakota

It looks like I ended up coming pretty close to the actual team. I didn't have Lasch that high, but I figured he'd be up there since everyone else did. I guess I'm not sure why though. As I had said, Lasch is a fine scorer to be sure, but he contributes little else(besides diving a lot and drawing penalties, but SCSU didn't do much with those anyway). Of the six guys I put ahead of him, four had a better point per game average, and the other two were within two points of him, and both were valuable members of their team's penalty kill.

I didn't have Jake Gardiner in my all-rookie team, the 60 Minutes blog made a nice argument for him, and after watching him a little closer, I've got no problem with him being on the team. He's come a long way over the past year and definitely deserves it.

I'm not surprised Colborne made the rookie team too. Like I said, there were a lot of guys with similar stats fighting for that third forward spot. Somebody asked me who I thought would get it last week and I said it would probably end up being Colborne just because of the name recognition factor.