Luiz writes:
 
> Who are the strongest candidates for the Pierre Belanger Memorial
> Award*, given every season to the worst referee in the ECAC? Merrs.
> Ammian, DiFusco and Noeth seem to have the inside track in 1996.
>
> Luiz F. Valente
>
> * This apocryphal award, established a few seasons ago by a group of ECAC
> hockey watchers, is named after Peerless Pierre, who can still be sighted
> in ECAC rinks, mainly in New York State.
 
Famous at last, now I can retire.
 
The Pierre Belanger Award is actually one of the TBRW? Annual Awards,
and has been faithfully bestowed for the last seven years upon whatever
wretch most incurred my wrath during the season.  For the record,
John Galipeau holds the all-time record for winning the award, and in fact
I sometimes toy with the idea of renaming it in his honor to memorialize
his retirement, especially in light of the fact that Pierre, despite
his storied dislike of fellow French Canadians, has actually turned
out to be a pretty good college ref.  But I just can't do it -- Pierre has
given us too many minutes (I'll say) of good, clean chaos for me to
turn my back on him. And anyway -- character should count for something.
 
As far as the inside track for this year's worthy recipient -- it'll
only cost you a subscription to find out!   :-)
 
 
Greg R. Berge
Co-founder, The Big Red What?
Let's Go Red!
 
For Cornellians, the other awards include:
 
The Duane Moeser Award -- leading scorer
The Chris Norton Award -- leading scorer, defensemen
The Mike Schafer Award -- leadership, hard-nosed dedication
The Dave Shippel Award -- Career improvement
The Doug Dadswell Award -- leading goaltender
The Joe Nieuwendyk Award -- MVP
 
The Kevan Melrose Award for Least Respected Opponent has been retired,
or at least is in dormancy until a recipient worthy of its namesake
can be found.  Unless the NCAA changes enough eligibility rules to
allow Ulf Samuelson to enter the ECAC, this is not likely to happen
anytime soon.
 
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