Plenty of Spartans were honored by the CCHA during spring break, including junior goaltender Ryan Miller and junior defenseman John-Michael Liles making the All-CCHA first team.
Miller leads the CCHA with a 1.75 goals against average, .937 saves percentage, 25 wins and eight shutouts. Liles leads league defensemen with 35 points (13 goals, 22 assists) and is tied for 14th among all CCHA players in points.
Also, senior defenseman Andrew Hutchinson earned second-team All-CCHA honors, while junior defenseman Brad Fast and junior left wing Brian Maloney received votes from the league’s coaches.
“A lot of it stems from us having a good season as a team,” Miller said. “I expect a lot of myself after last season and I know where I want to be with my game. This is a great honor, but more goes into it teamwise.”
Fast and senior right wing Adam Hall were named to the league’s All-Academic team, with Miller and sophomore center Tim Hearon receiving honorable mention. Junior forward Troy Ferguson and sophomore defenseman Joe Markusen received “special mention” for being nominated.
“It’s nice to be rewarded for something other than hockey,” Fast said. “We don’t just come to school just to play hockey, we come to school to get a degree as well. It’s nice to see some rewards for that.”
Freshman center Jim Slater also garnered some accolades during break, making the Bauer/CCHA All-Rookie team. Freshman defenseman Duncan Keith received honorable mention.
But, although expected, the one sour note from last week was Miller’s 13th place finish in the “Vote for Hobey” online fan balloting. New Hampshire forward Darren Haydar won the fan vote, but Miller still is expected to be named as one of 10 finalists for the Hobey Baker Award on Thursday.
He won the Hobey as college hockey’s outstanding player last season.
Miller, again
Miller will find out today if he’s one of five finalists for the Amateur Athletic Union’s 72nd Annual Sullivan Award - the most prestigious honor for an amateur athlete in the nation. Miller was named one of 14 semifinalists in January, along with athletes such as Olympic figure skater Michelle Kwan and football safety Roy Williams.
The winner of the Sullivan Award will be announced April 9, athletic union spokeswoman Melissa Wilson said. No hockey player has ever won the Sullivan.
No. 3 seed?
MSU is ranked No. 5 in the newest Pairwise Rankings, which attempt to mimic the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee’s method of choosing and seeding teams. If the rankings stay the same through this weekend’s conference tournament title games, MSU would likely be the No. 3 seed in the NCAA West regional on March 22-23 at Yost Ice Arena in Ann Arbor.
The 12-team NCAA Tournament field will be announced at 9 p.m. Sunday on ESPNEWS. If the Spartans aren’t in Ann Arbor, they will play in the East regional in Worcester, Mass. The 2002 Frozen Four is at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn.
McCarty, Draper, Maltby, Mason …
The first 5,000 fans, regardless of age, to enter Joe Louis Arena for Sunday’s CCHA championship game will receive a free Ron Mason bobble-head doll. The game starts at 3:05 p.m.
“I laughed about it when they asked me for permission,” Mason said. “But I said, ‘If you want to do it, go ahead.’”
The Super Six round of the CCHA Tournament begins Friday when reseeded No. 6 Notre Dame plays No. 3 Northern Michigan and No. 5 Ohio State plays No. 4 Alaska-Fairbanks. The lowest remaining seed will play No. 1 Michigan at 2:05 p.m. Saturday, while the highest remaining seed will play No. 2 MSU at 5:35 p.m.
MSU could play any of the quarterfinalists except Notre Dame.
From 5-holes to 5-irons
Junior right wing Steve Jackson’s spring break was pretty restful when he wasn’t at hockey practice - he honed his video game skills on EA Sports’ Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2002 for PlayStation 2.
“We had a bunch of the boys over, pretty much every day for about a five-hour span going at it in Tiger Woods and playing some music,” Jackson said. “It was a lot of fun.”
Did you know?
Liles’ 35 points is tops among MSU players this season, two ahead of Hall and Maloney. The last MSU defenseman to lead the Spartans in points for a season was Jason Woolley, who scored 59 (15 goals, 44 assists) in 1990-91.
