Hockey East has announced some of their award winners today and will announce the major ones at tomorrow’s championship banquet.  However, here’s my take on the major awards and All-Hockey East teams.  Feel free to tell me how wrong I am.  (For the record, I make my selections upon performance in league games only.  I also made my picks before the official ones came out this afternoon)

Player of the Year – Cam Atkinson, Boston College
To tell you the truth I was completely torn between Atkinson and New Hampshire’s Paul Thompson.  Atkinson had 24 goals in conference play, Thompson 23.  Thompson had 42 points, Atkinson 38.  Really, I found it tough to say definitively one was better than the other.  The tie-breaker?  How did they do when the two teams met in the last weekend of the regular season and the title was on the line.  Atkinson had three goals and one assist.  Thompson had just one assist.  Enough said.

Coach of the Year – Mark Dennehy, Merrimack College
If I have to explain this one it means you haven’t been paying attention.

Rookie of the Year – Mike Pereira, Massachusetts
This probably looks like a homer pick, but hear out my reasoning.  First, he led all freshmen in goals in conference play.  Not only that but he led the Minutemen in goals as well, accounting for 15% of the team’s total output in conference games.  He even led the Minutemen in +/- in those games with +5.  He was one point behind BU’s Charlie Coyle in league points for freshmen playing in one less game.  I can pretty much guarantee that Pereira won’t win tomorrow because unlike Coyle he’s not a high NHL draft pick playing for Boston University, but tell me which freshman had a bigger impact on his respective team?  In fact, I wouldn’t even put Coyle as runner-up in this award, instead giving that honor to Northeastern’s Jamie Oleksiak who absolutely shut down opposing offenses for the Huskies.

Hockey East All-Stars 1st Team
F – Cam Atkinson, Boston College
F – Paul Thompson, New Hampshire
F – Gustav Nyquist, Maine
D – Brian Dumoulin, Boston College
D – David Warsofsky, Boston Univeristy
G – John Muse, Boston College

Hockey East All-Stars 2nd Team
F – Stephane Da Costa, Merrimack College
F – Brian Gibbons, Boston College
F – Brian Flynn, Maine
D – Blake Kelssel, New Hampshire
D – Ulf Samuelsson’s son, Boston College
G – Matt Di Girolamo, New Hampshire

Hockey East All-Rookie Team
F – Charlie Coyle, Boston University
F – Mike Pereira, Massachusetts
F – Mike Collins, Merrimack
D – Jamie Oleksiak, Northeastern
D – Adam Clendening, Boston University
G – Dan Sullivan, Maine

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As mentioned, Hockey East did announce some award winners and congratulations goes out to Mike Pereira who was named to the All-Rookie team.  Pereira and BU’s Coyle were the only unanimous picks to the team.   Paul Dainton was named a runner-up to the Len Ceglarski Sportsmanship Award (much to the chagrin of WCHA officials).

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Recruit Steve Mastalerz and Joe Manno (who is rumored to have committed/recommitted to UMass) will be teammates in the Beantown Classic tournament that takes place this week.

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The Big Ten Hockey Conference could become official as early as next week, thereby destroying college hockey as we know it…if you believe some WCHA and CCHA fans (which I don’t).

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Make sure to check back later tonight or tomorrow as I plan to have my season recap very soon.