Rock The Vote, Plus Other News

Four Union players are up for major awards this year:

Senior Stephane Boileau is up for the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award. 33% of the vote belongs to the fans, so make sure to vote for the Professor by clicking here. As of this moment he has 4.3% of the vote, while Canisius forward Cory Conacher leads the way with 24.2% of the vote.

Senior Adam Presizniuk and sophomores Jeremy Welsh and Keith Kinkaid are up for the Hobey Baker Award. You can vote for them by clicking here. Last year Mario Valery-Trabucco won the the fan vote. As Union fans we really have to pick up here as Kinkaid has received 1% of the vote while the other two have received none. Also, RPI's Chase Polacek and Allen York have received 19% and 18%, respectively. The current leader is North Dakota's Matt Frattin with 27%.

Tonight was "Coach's Corner LIVE at Bombers." Coach Leaman was unable to make it tonight, so captain Brock Matheson and Coach Ben Barr filled in for him. The last raffle of the night was an autographed puck from Brock. The luck winner was Connor Meigher, the son of Garnet Blades president Tim Meigher '75. Brock talked with the Meigher's for a bit and took this picture (below) with Connor. The senior captain did a great job on the radio and talking with fans after the show.

In other news, the repercussions of the Klump-Stewart confrontation were handed out today. Stewart was fined, while Klump was let go by CHN.

Tomorrow night (Wednesday) at 7pm the Union College Club Hockey team will travel to Binghamton to take on Broome CC. You can watch the game online by clicking here.

Frozen Four: Day 2

Today, my family and I enjoyed our off day. It started off with some glow-in-the-dark mini golf and then we headed to the Frozen Four Fan Fest, which was in the Renaissance Center. The fest was cool as it had some interactive hockey games and a time line of NCAA Hockey. I also got interviewed by a local website about the Frozen Four. After that we headed over to Windsor, Canada for a few drinks and then headed back to the States for the Skills Competition.

The competition was nice as always, but the only bad thing about it was that you couldn't get right up to the boards. I also miss Barry Melrose hosting the whole thing. Union's Jason Walters was a member of the East squad, who lost to the West once again. Even though it doesn't matter at all, Wally was pretty disappointing and was probably the worst player on the ice statistically (but once again who cares). He put his team behind in the puck control relay, didn't score once in the rapid fire shootout, and failed to get a shot off in the penalty shot competition. At least he wasn't as embarrassed as former Union goaltender Jason Mrazek was two years ago when he took part in the competition (see video here). Other ECAC representatives included Harvard's Alex Biega and Cornell's Ben Scrivens. Also, at the competiton I saw my first Union jersey (besides mine) at the Frozen Four. It was a vintage Josh Coyle jersey.

Friday was also the day when the Hobey Baker Award was given out and the All-American teams were announced. Sadly, no Union player was awarded. The Hobey went to Wisconsin's Blake Geoffrion, who will be playing for the national championship tomorrow. He is the first Badger to win the award.

You can check out the All-American teams here. Cornell's Ben Scrivens and Brendon Nash, along with RPI's Chase Polacek were named to the East First Team, while Yale's Broc Little and Sean Backman were named to the Second Team.

Tomorrow we will be heading to Comerica Park to see the Detroit Tigers take on the Cleveland Indians. The ballpark looks awesome from the outside and I'm really excited to see the inside. After that we might head to Cheli's Chili Bar (owned by NHL legend Chris Chelios) and then on to the national championship game. Hopefully, the final game of the Frozen Four will be a good one (it can't be any worse than either semifinal game). I think it's going to be a high scoring affair as each the Eagles and Badgers sport top ranked offenses. I'm going to go with Wisconsin 5-3 because BC has lately been prone to let up a ton of goals to top ranked offenses. They let up six goals to Maine (#4 offense) in the Hockey East championship game and allowed seven goals to Yale (#1 offense) in the regional final. The Eagles won both of those games, but I think that streak will come to an end. Either way, I just want to see an awesome hockey game and wouldn't mind a 50t game.

Hobey Baker voting update; Mario in 6th

As of 5:30pm today there have been 35,035 votes tallied on HobeyBaker.com, and Union's Mario Valery-Trabucco is in sixth place with 2,122 votes. The player in first place is RPI's Chase Polacek who has 3,749 votes so far. Mario is about 500 votes out of fifth place.

To read more about Mario, Mike Schreiber, and the Hobey Baker voting you can check Union Athletics.com.

Schreiber and Valery-Trabucco nominated for Hobey Baker Award

A few days ago senior defenseman Mike Schreiber and senior forward Mario Valery-Trabucco were nominated for the Hobey Baker award: the hockey equivalent of the Heisman Trophy. This is a tremendous honor and both are well deserving. Schreiber is the anchor of the Dutchmen defense and is one of the top defensemen in the ECAC. The senior assistant captain is currently tied for third on the team with 18 points (5g, 13a) and leads all ECAC defensemen in points, assists, and leads all ECAC players in plus/minus (+19). He is only one of 13 defensemen nominated for the Hobey Baker award. Mario has been one of the most prolific scorers in the ECAC this season as he has registered 26 points in 20 games. He is second in the ECAC in points, tied for second in goals (12), and leads all forwards with a +15 rating.

To vote for them go to the Hobey Baker Website. They will need tons of support to make it to the next round of fan voting. Oh and just for your information, RPI's Chase Polacek is currently second in the voting with over 1000 votes. Last season BU's Matt Gilroy, who is now with the New York Rangers, won the award.