Wednesday 1 May 2019

Raiders add individual WHL awards to trophy collection

Curtis Hunt, left, and Marc Habscheid, centre, won WHL awards.
    In what has been a special season in “Hockey Town North,” the Prince Albert Raiders added to their trophy collection with three individual awards.
    The individual honours were the result of a season that saw the team top the WHL regular season standings with a 54-10-2-2 record. The Raiders were rated second in the final CHL Top 10 rankings.
    On Wednesday at the WHL Awards ceremony held in Red Deer, netminder Ian Scott was named the goaltender of the year, Marc Habscheid took home coach of the year honours and general manager Curtis Hunt was named the executive of the year.
    Scott was presented the Del Wilson Trophy as the WHL goaltender of the year. The Calgary product, who has signed an NHL entry-level contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs, had an outstanding season posting a 38-8-3 record, a 1.83 goals against average, a .932 save percentage and eight shutouts.
    His goals against average, save percentage and shutout totals were all regular season club records.
    Scott becomes the first Raiders netminder to win goaltender of the year honours since Kenton Rein in the 1986-87 season. That season, Rein was named the winner from the East Division and shared goaltender of the year honours with Dean Cook of the Kamloops Blazers of the West Division.
    Habscheid won the Dunc McCallum Memorial Trophy as the WHL coach of the year. The Swift Current, Sask., product also took home league coach of the year honours back in 2003, when he guided the Kelowna Rockets to top spot in the regular season standings and a WHL championship.
Marc Habscheid and the Raiders coach oversee a timeout.
    This season, Habscheid picked up his 500th regular season career win as a WHL head coach and coached in his 1,000th career regular season game.
    The last time a member of the Raiders took home league coach of the year honours was in 1985-86 by the team’s legendary head coach in Terry Simpson. Simpson was named WHL coach of the year guiding the Raiders in 1983-84.
    Hunt won the Lloyd Saunders Memorial Trophy as the WHL executive of the year. Joining the Raiders before the start of the 2015-16 season, the North Battleford, Sask., product oversaw the constructions of the team’s roster through smart draft selections and trades.
    Under Hunt’s watch, the Raiders were able to have three talented rookies in their 16-year-old seasons have big impacts on the team in forwards Ozzy Wiesblatt and Jakob Brook along with defenceman Kaiden Guhle.
    Rookie left-winger Aliaksei Protas is turning into a good pick from the CHL Import Draft.
    Hunt, who is a former Raiders captain as a player, picked up a number of key players via the trade route in captain Brayden Pachal, star right-winger Brett Leason, star overage centre Noah Gregor, speedy overage centre Dante Hannoun, and defencemen Max Martin, Jeremy Masella and Sergei Sapego.
    Hunt is the first member of the Raiders to be named the league’s executive of the year.
Ian Scott was named the WHL’s goaltender of the year.
    The Raiders add the individual awards to already winning the Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy for topping the regular season standings and the Eastern Conference championship trophy.
    It is often viewed that the number of individual awards a team wins is another sign that shows how good that team was in a specific year. Of course, the Raiders have had a spectacular campaign in 2018-19.
    The Raiders will try to keep their roll going when they begin play in the best-of-seven WHL Championship series against the Vancouver Giants. Game 1 is set for Friday at 7 p.m. local time at the Art Hauser Centre in Prince Albert.
    The Giants finished second overall in the WHL regular season standings with a 48-15-3-2 record and were rated sixth in the final CHL Top 10 rankings.
    As for other major award winners, Portland Winterhawks left-winger Joachim Blichfeld took home the Four Broncos Memorial Trophy as the WHL player of the year. Blichfeld won the Bob Clarke Trophy as the WHL’s top scorer leading the league in regular season scoring with 53 goals and 61 assists for 114 points.
    Ty Smith of the Spokane Chiefs walked away with the Bill Hunter Memorial Trophy as the WHL defenceman of the year. Everett Silvertips goaltender Dustin Wolf won the Daryl K. (Doc) Seaman Memorial Trophy as the WHL scholastic player of the year.
    Left-winger Brayden Tracey of the Moose Jaw Warriors captured the Jim Piggott Memorial Trophy as the WHL rookie of the year. Warriors centre Justin Almeida took home the Brad Hornung Trophy as the WHL’s most sportsmanlike player.
    Defenceman Will Warm of the Edmonton Oil Kings received the Doug Wickenheiser Memorial Trophy as the WHL humanitarian of the year.
The Raiders will try to keep fun going in the WHL final.
    Referee Brett Iverson won the Allen Paradice Memorial Trophy as the WHL official of the year.
    The Silvertips claimed the WHL business award. The Winterhawks were named the WHL’s scholastic team of the year.
    The WHL also announced on Wednesday over $460,000 has been raised through two seasons through the WHL Suits Up with Don Cherry campaign to promote organ donation. Proceeds raised were given to the local chapters of the Kidney Foundation of Canada.
    Besides the WHL awards, Protas was named the CHL’s player of the week for the week of April 22 to last Sunday.
    Protas earned the honours with two big games. On Friday, he had his first career WHL hat trick and an assist to power the Raiders to a 4-0 victory over the Edmonton Oil Kings in Game 5 of the WHL Eastern Conference Championship series at the Art Hauser Centre in Prince Albert.
    In Game 6 on Sunday at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Protas had a hat trick in the Raiders 4-2 series clinching victory over the Oil Kings.

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