Richmond Sockeyes Awards Banquet

Each season brings a new added excitement to the Sockeyes organization and while they came up short they played entertaining, exciting and a fast paced game for everyone attending each Thursday at Minoru.

Last year’s record of 45 wins, 1 loss, 2 shootout losses, 2 overtime wins and 1 shootout win captured them first place in the Tom Shaw Conference in the PJHL.

Numbers and records are made to be broken but considering all the roster changes due to injuries, player call-up to WHL teams and the odd flu bug that was going around the coaching staff were juggling the roster from game to game.

This year’s wrap-up banquet was held at the Richmond Golf and Country Club with the team announcing that two dedicated individuals would not be returning which was a loss to the team.

The first is long-time volunteer who was in charge of the volunteer manager Tina O’Connor and the second was the team known to everyone as SJ who was the athletic therapist for the past five years and her skills will be deeply missed.

The trainers award had several who were in the running but in the end it was who pulled out the win that was based on time on the table, rehabbing the injury, number of injuries or the number of text messages she received with the winner going to Willian Huo and Felix Poritras.

In conversation with Cullen he mentioned “they had a hard time picking individuals for various awards so some have two recipients which shows the overall depth of the team.”

Starting out with the Volunteers of the Year went to both Matsumoto and Ross and the Most Popular Player award to both Dawson Sucke and Teo Lin, while Nick Kovich and Max Shin were recognized as the Most Improved players.

Fitting into any team takes time and two who stepped up and fit in like a glove were both Nate Gray and Beaudy Beaudin who were named co-winners of the Rookie of the Year.

The Sockeyes Leadership Award went to retired Captain and current Player Development and Assistant GM Matthew Steward while the  Community Leaders Award went to Ryan Kump and Max Shin.

Each team has several who could be named as the team MVP leaders and this year the Sockeyes have both Nick Noren and William Huo with both Mattias Uyeda and Michael MacIntyre recipients of the Defensive Player of the Year.

The Cumberworth Fan Award this season has two recipients who are both extremely deserving namely the Steward Family and the Revel Boys who seldom missed a game and could be heard throughout the rink.

Staying healthy and dressing up albeit you do not feel like it were both Burke Newton and Nick Noren who both played 46 games giving 100% in every game.

Player of the Month Awards were shared with Teo Lin, Nick Noren, Beaudy Beaudin and Mathias Hasselmann.

A new award this year is fittingly named Community Award that was shared by both Ryan Kump and Max Shin that saw the Alumni Scholarship Award was shared while the Three Star Award presented to Nick Noren.

The wrap-up was well attended and the Sockeyes want to personally thank everyone who made it such a success.

Next week we’ll chat with Head Coach Cullen Revel and owner Doug Paterson and get their overall perspective on the season.

Thank you for your continuing support of the Richmond Sockeyes!!!