Drury Honored as Hobey Baker Finalist, ECAC Player of the Year

He's already the captain of the Harvard men's hockey team. He's already an Olympian. He has already won the Beanpot tournament's most valuable player award.

And yesterday, junior hockey sensation Captain led Drury added two more accolades to his ever growing list.

At the ECAC Tournament Banquet in lake Placid, N.Y. Drury was named ECAC Player of the Year--as well as one of the country's ten Hobey Baker Award finalists.

Drury edged out Yale's senior forward Mark Kaufman in Player of the Year balloting, garnering 25 total votes from the league's head coaches to Kaufman's 22.

Vermont sophomore netminder Christian Soucy and Rensselaer goal-tender junior Neil Little finished third and fourth in the voting with 10 and nine votes respectively.

"Teddy definitely deserved the award." Harvard Coach Ronn Tomassoni said yesterday. "He's had a great year for us, and in my opinion he's the premiere player in the country right now."

Tomassoni said that Drury accepted the award humbly, shrugging his shoulder's in the Trumbull, Conn., native's classic style.

"Teddy's a very modest person," Tomassoni said. "He didn't make much of it."

The Leverett resident did, on the other hand, make much of the season this year. Drury scored 17 goals and dished out 27 assists while leading the Crimson to a 16-3-3 league record and second-straight regular-season title.

He finished second in ECAC scoring behind Kaufman.

But Tomassoni said Drury is not just an offensive force, and that's why he considers Drury's chances for the Hobey Baker better than those of the other finalists.

"I've said this all along, and I'm prejudiced for obvious reasons, but, with all due respect to the other great players around the country, Teddy is also a defensive force. He's the complete package," Tomassoni said. "I'm just glad he's on our side."

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Other ECAC Voting: Harvard players and coaches did not receive any of the tour other awards that the ECAC presented yesterday.

The most notable absence from the winners' circle was freshman goalie and Beanpot hero Tripp Tracy. Although Tracy finished with the best goaltending numbers in the ECAC, St. Lawrence freshman forward Burke Murphy ran away with the award, with 20 votes.

Tracy's 12 votes placed him third behind RPI forward Bryan Richardson (16 votes). Brown's Ryan Mulhern and Dartmouth's Bill Kelleher rounded out the list with 10 and nine votes respectively.

Dartmouth Head Coach Roger Demment garnered honors for coach of the year in the ECAC. Demment led the Big Green to its best record since 1980.

"I obviously was pleasantly surprised to win," Demment said. "We came a very long way this year after so many dry seasons."

Awards for Best Defensive Defenseman and Best Defensive Forward were added this year, and although Harvard featured the league's top defense, no Crimson player won either prize.

Clarkson senior defender Martin d'Orsonnens was named best defensive defenseman by just one vote over Vermont's Aaron Miller, 22 to 21, and St. Lawrence senior Greg Carvel won for best defensive forward.

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Send in the Bears: After Harvard finished thrashing Princeton last weekend at Bright, players and coaches spoke of how fortunate it was the Crimson was peaking at just the right time.

Last weekend's victories restored the team's confidence in its scoring ability. Harvard had been struggling and had not had much success putting the puck in the net for the three weeks before the ECAC play-offs.

But the Crimson's offensive explosion--14 goals in two games--drove the Tigers to recycle its netminders in the middle of the second game. Harvard's was reminiscent of the level it reached against SLU and Clarkson in January, when it scored 14 goals against those teams.

Harvard still has two more games before it can add the ECAC tournament title to its list of accomplishments this season, however. The Crimson takes on Brown tonight at 8 p.m. in Lake Placid, and if it beats the Bears will face the winner of the RPI-Clarkson game.

Brown gained its spot in the semi-finals by barely edging Yale in their best-of-three series in Providence, R.I. The Bears tied the Elis in the first game, 3-3, and then won the second, 5-3, to advance to the semifinals.

Brown Co-Captain Scott Hanley and senior Derek Chauvette led the Bears in scoring this season with 61 points between them.

But Head Coach Bob Gaudet and his team prefer the physical game. Penalties riddled both games between the Crimson and the Bears, and tonight should be no different.