Yet another awards dinner was held last Saturday night, this one at Cornell,
as the Hockey Boosters Association held the thirty-first annual Cornell
Hockey Team banquet.  Aside from misspelling "April" on the tickets, things
went well, with a laundry list of awards being handed out during the
night -- most of them going to the nine departing seniors.
 
First was the Gun Hill Player of the Year, which is not a Cornell award but
is sponsored by a local apartment complex.  The players accumulate points
toward this award each time they are named one of the three stars of a game,
with first star getting three points, second two, and third one (ah, a math-
ematical system, not a poll! :-)  The winner of the award, not surprisingly,
was goaltender Parris Duffus.  The award also carries a $500 donation to a
non-profit organization designated by the winner; Duffus chose the Special
Children's Center of Ithaca.  The runners-up for the Gun Hill award were
Karl Williams and Jason Vogel.
 
On to the Cornell hockey awards:
 
     The Bill Doran Memorial Award for sportsmanship:  defenseman Paul
     Dukovac.
 
     The Wendell Earle Memorial Award for excellence in both hockey and
     academics:  winger Stephane Gauvin.  A note here:  the award was
     presented by Wendell's grandson Evan, who at eight or nine years old
     was easily the youngest presenter of the evening.  He gave a good
     speech, too.
 
     The Joe DeLibero - Stan Tsapis Memorial Award for skilled efficiency,
     dedication, and hard-nosed competitiveness:  defenseman Dave Burke.
 
     The Sam Woodside Hockey Award for most improvement over a career:
     defenseman/winger Jim McPhee, who was injured his freshman year, spent
     almost his entire sophomore year with the JV team, then played forward
     with the varsity junior year and shifted to defense this season when
     Dukovac went down with a broken leg.
 
     The Cornell Hockey Boosters Award for the player "whose contribution to
     the team is not apparent in box scores" -- enthusiasm, dedication,
     desire, etc.:  center Karl Williams and winger Phil Nobel.
 
     The Mark Weiss Memorial Award, given by the Class of 1981 in memory of
     Mark Weiss, a hockey player who died during his sophomore(?) season, to
     the player who shows the most determination and passion for the sport
     of hockey.  The award was given to Joe Dragon.
 
     The Crimson Cup (or the Alan Brown Award), for the outstanding player
     in the season series with Harvard:  Alex Nikolic.
 
     The Iron Man Award -- I like the program's description of this one:
     "Presented to the team member who, in spite of being bruised, broken,
     spliced, sliced, or otherwise hurt, most demonstrates the will and
     determination to overcome his injuries..."  The award went to defense-
     man Marc Deschamps, who recovered from three knee surgeries over his
     sophomore and junior years.
 
 
     The Nicky Bawlf Award, given to the most valuable varsity player as
     voted by his teammates.  Big surprise here:  Parris Duffus.
 
Also given out was the John D. Velie award, given to an outstanding player
on the junior varsity team.  This year's award went to Jeff Klinge.
 
Along with the awards, each senior, both varsity and junior varsity,
received a Cornell hockey jersey, and Parris Duffus also received one for
the shutout he had against Vermont.  Ordinarily, any varsity player who
scored a hat trick would receive a jersey as well, but there weren't any
this year.
 
Best line of the night:  I liked the comments about referees Tim MacConaghy
and John Gallagher, but my personal favorite came during the senior
speeches, when Marc Deschamps opened his remarks with "OK, I'm going to keep
this short, because I'm probably not the only one who has to go to the
bathroom."
 
And once again, many thanks to all of you out there who have helped make
HOCKEY-L's third year its best ever, IMHO.  I recently got back on Usenet's
rec.sport.hockey after a several-month absence and was reminded why I was
not terribly fond of it.  The hockey information there seems to regularly
get obscured a lot by idiotic flame wars, a condition which thankfully does
not exist here on HOCKEY-L.
 
Two hundred days and counting until the Red-White game...
--
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86 and probably '94
LET'S GO RED!!
"So, are they rooting for Wisconsin or making fun of them?"
-- my wife Lisa, upon seeing a group of Cheeseheads for the first time during
   the telecast of the NCAA championship game