Western Collegiate Hockey Association Bruce M. McLeod Commissioner Carol LaBelle-Ehrhardt Assistant Commissioner of Operations Greg Shepherd Supervisor of Officials Administrative Office Western Collegiate Hockey Association March 8, 2012/For Release at 4:30 pm CT 2211 S. Josephine Street, Room 302 Denver, CO 80210 p: 303 871-4491. f: 303 871-4770 UMD’s Jack Connolly Named WCHA Player of the Year, UND’s [email protected] Brad Eidsness is WCHA Outstanding Student-Athlete of the Doug Spencer Associate Commissioner for Year to Highlight 2011-12 Men’s Individual Award Winners Public Relations Western Collegiate Hockey Association UW’s Justin Schultz Tabbed as WCHA Defensive Player of the Year for Second Straight 559 D’Onofrio Drive, Ste. 103 Season by League’s Head Coaches; Denver Defenseman Joey LaLeggia is WCHA Rookie Madison, WI 53719-2096 p: 608 829-0100. f: 608 829-0200 of the Year; Michigan Tech’s Mel Pearson Honored as WCHA Coach of the Year; Connolly [email protected] is Conference Scoring Champion; UM’s Kent Patterson is WCHA Goaltending Champion; Home of a Collegiate Record 37 Minnesota, Minnesota Duluth Both Place Two on All-WCHA First Team; 149 Student- Men’s National Championship Athletes Earn All-WCHA Academic Team Honors Teams Since 1951 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, MADISON, Wis. – A pair of seniors have earned two of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association’s 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, most prestigious individual awards as announced today (March 8), with forward Jack Connolly of 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981, the University of Minnesota Duluth being named WCHA Player of the Year for 2011-12 and Brad 1982, 1983, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1997, Eidsness, a goaltender at the University of North Dakota, selected as WCHA Outstanding Student- 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, Athlete of the Year. 2011 The league’s five other major individual awards went to University of Wisconsin defenseman Men’s Conference Members Justin Schultz as WCHA Defensive Player of the Year for the second straight season, University University of Alaska Anchorage of Denver defenseman Joey LaLeggia as WCHA Rookie of the Year, Connolly as WCHA Scoring Bemidji State University Champion, University of Minnesota netminder Kent Patterson as WCHA Goaltending Champion, Colorado College University of Denver and to first-year head coachMel Pearson of Michigan Technological University as WCHA Coach of Michigan Technological University the Year. University of Minnesota Connolly, who received 48 of the 96 votes in player of the year balloting, also captured the league’s University of Minnesota Duluth Minnesota State University scoring title (conference games only) with 43 points (16g, 27a) while playing in all 28 games for the University of Nebraska Omaha defending national champion Bulldogs – after finishing second a year ago. Named to the All-WCHA University of North Dakota First Team for the second straight season and a two-time WCHA Offensive Player of the Week (Nov. St. Cloud State University University of Wisconsin 15, Feb. 14), he averaged a league-best 1.54 points per game, was first in assists, first in power-play points (8-16=24) and had three game-winning goals. A native of Duluth, Minn., Connolly was a 2012 Red Baron™ finalist for the 2010-11 Hobey Baker Memorial Award, was a first team All-American last season, and WCHA Final Five is a finalist for this season’s Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award. He is currently second nationally in points March 15-17 • Xcel Energy Center with 55 and for his career (through March 8) he has 64 goals, 128 assists and 192 points, which ties Saint Paul, MN him for ninth place on UMD’s all-time career scoring list with 1984 Hobey Baker winner Tom Kurv- visit us on the web at: ers. Connolly has also been held pointless for more than two games in a row only twice since the start of his sophomore season – six weeks ago when he was blanked in the Michigan Tech series wcha.com – which ended his school single-season record 22-game point-scoring streak. He has also played in a school-record 161 consecutive games. North Dakota’s Eidsness, a three-time WCHA Scholar-Athlete, was named the men’s WCHA Out- standing Student-Athlete of the Year in a vote of league member team Faculty Athletic Represen- tatives. Over the course of his four years he has not only stayed on track with progress towards a degree but he has completed both a Bachelor of Business Administration degree and by May will have completed the requirements and be awarded a Master of Business Administration degree. In recognition of his academic efforts, he was awarded an NCAA Elite 88 Award for men’s ice hockey at the 2011 NCAA Frozen Four. Eidsness graduated Magna Cum Laude with a 3.779 cumulative GPA in undergraduate work and has a 3.625 cumulative GPA in graduate school. During this past fall semes- WCHA Men’s Release/2011-12 Awards/030812 Minnesota Duluth Forward Jack Connolly North Dakota’s Brad Eidsness WCHA Player of the Year, WCHA Scoring Champion WCHA Outstanding Student-Athlete of the Year community service. His contributions include annual food drives, fan fests, Sioux Kids Club events and speaking engagements at a number of different community events. The WCHA Outstanding Student-Athlete of the Year Award is determined from nominations made by the member institutions and each institution then has one final vote. The criteria is as fol- lows: 1) must be a senior student-athlete, i.e. one who is finishing his competition as an eligible player in the WCHA; 2) consistently displays outstanding sportsmanship on and off the ice; 3) is a good student making satisfactory progress toward a degree; and 4) is a good hockey player who has performed consistently as a regular member of the team. For the second straight season, the league’s 12 head coaches voted University of Wisconsin blueliner Justin Schultz as the WCHA Defensive Player of the Year. This is only the third time in the history of the award that started in 1991 that a player has won it twice. Colorado College defenseman Eric Rud won the award in both 1995-96 and 1996-97 while Minnesota defenseman Jordan Wisconsin Defenseman Justin Schultz Leopold earned the honor in both 2000-01 and 2001-02. From Two-Time WCHA Defensive Player of the Year West Kelowna, B.C., and a first team All-American honoree and Hobey Baker Memorial Award Top 10 Finalist as a sophomore, ter, he completed 15 credits of graduate coursework with a term Schultz also earned All-WCHA First Team honors for the second GPA of 3.80 while continuing to perform well for the UND hockey straight season and he is the third straight Wisconsin player to earn team as a regular goaltender. He has seen action in 14 games this the league’s defensive player of the year award (Brendan Smith season and sports a 7-3-1 record, a noteable 2.09 goals-against in 2009-10). The nation’s, and the WCHA’s, top point-producing average and a .923 save percentage. Over his career at UND, he defenseman, Schultz is averaging 1.24 points per game through has a 57-27-10 won-loss record with a 2.41 goals-against average 34 games this season (15-27=42) and if he stays on top of the and a .907 save percentage along with five shutouts. In addition UW’s current goal-scoring list for 2011-12, he’ll become the first to his stellar work in the classroom and on the ice, Eidsness has defenseman in school history to lead the team in goal scoring. A been active on campus as a team representative to SAAC and with draftee of the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks, he logs 30-35 minutes of ice WCHA Men’s Release/2011-12 Awards/030812 Minnesota’s Kent Patterson WCHA Goaltending Champion Denver Defenseman Joey LaLeggia WCHA Rookie of the Year time per game, leads the Badgers with a +11 plus/minus rating, and has produced almost a point per game over his 118-game collegiate career, with 39 goals, 72 assists and 111 points. Schultz was the league’s defensive player of the week on both Nov. 29 and Jan. 24. Honored as the WCHA Rookie of the Year for 2011-12 was Uni- versity of Denver freshman defenseman Joey LaLeggia, who was named on 55 ballots, and also earned All-WCHA First Team and All-WCHA Rookie Team accolades. From Burnaby, B.C., LaLeggia has stepped in as a rookie and averaged better than a point per game for the Pioneers, ranking just behind Schultz in scoring overall among league defensemen with 37 points (11g, 26a) in 36 games. He was also the top scoring rookie in WCHA play this season with 8-20=28 in 28 conference games, leads all NCAA rookie Michigan Tech’s Mel Pearson defensemen in points, goals and assists, and owns an impressive WCHA Coach of the Year +16 plus/minus rating. He is tied with teammate Jason Zucker for the team lead with 13 multiple-point games, he was named also owned a WCHA-best 20 victories (20-8-0, .714) and his .918 the HCA (Hockey Commissioners’ Association) National Rookie conference save percentage ranked third. Patterson,w ho earned of the Month for January, and was the WCHA Defensive Player of three WCHA Defensive Player of the Week awards on Oct. 11, Nov. the Week on Jan. 17. 1 and Feb.