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drodger91 · 03-25-2018, 04:57 PM

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This yearâ€™s Montreal awards were a tough one. We lost a lot of good people around the trade deadline, and a lot of future star rookies had to take over to really steer this team in the right direction, and those rookieâ€™s were rewarded from their hard work with some nice shiny hardware to take home.

<div align="center">The Kain Webb Award: Team Leadership Award: Hobbs
-As Iâ€™m sure Texas and the rest of the league has been able to tell, Hobbs is a leader where ever he ends up. Rookieâ€™s tend to be the quite guys trying to learn and soak up everything they can, Hobbs did that, and he contributed whenever he could.

The Jordan Nugent Hall Award: Most dedicated Player Award: Valentine
-Valentine started out last year looking like an easy candidate for rookie of the year in the SMJHL. Paying along side Koenig was a massive help for his early career in the SMJHL, but after the departure of Koenig, the team went into a little bit of a depression because everyone knew what the rest of the season was going to be like. Viktor really just kept his head down, training everyday on and off the ice, knowing it would get better and he could be part of the solution here.

The Christoph Klose Award: Top Forward: Roy
-As stated before, this was a rough year for awards, even though Roy only had 17 points in 50 games, still a good haul for a rookie, most of the top point getters were IFAâ€™s with much higher TPE and more SMJHL experience, we felt it necessary to reward our hard working active players for what was a tough year.

The Quilha Agante Award: Top Defenseman: Valentine
-Valentine put up a great deal of points for a rookie defencemen this season, with 22 points in 50 games, only one point shy of team scoring title. Upper management is already foaming at the mouth hoping he is the second coming of Connor Tanner once the team starts to develop around him.

Petr Klimek Award: Player with the strongest abilities on both ends of the ice: Hansen
-Hansen was another Montreal rookie that had to step up his game when the team imploded and he did just that. Having a zero plus minus rating does sound like a very low haul for a full season, but in Montreal, the plus minus stat category was not a very good looking one at seasons end, so to see a player still post a neutral rating was a big deal.

Josef Heiss Award: Top Goaltender: Moreau
-A pretty obvious award here. Moreau also added his name to the All-Time list in Montreal for shots against, which isnâ€™t a stat upper management likes to see added every year to that All-Time list, but the goalies are doing the heavy lifting when that happens.

Armin BrovlachukAward: Season MVP Selected by the GMs: Valentine
-Basically read above for why a player like Valentine should win such an award. He started out with a bang, and even after losing the vast majority of this team, he kept going on a great pace for someone who was basically passing to himself.

Kurtis Hunter Award: Team's Choice MVP: Viktor Valentine & Cedric Moreau
-We had a dead heat in this award, and decided that both players are very worthy of this award. Valentine lead all Militia rookieâ€™s in scoring, almost nabbing the team title, and Moreau did more then we could have ever asked him to do in net and keep us in every game.

The Alonzo Garbanzo Award: Awarded to a rookie Impact player who played well on the ice and had good LR presence.: Valentine
-This was another easy win for Valentine, who as I have stated, was a huge part of this team getting any points on the board, and we can't wait to see how his second season goes.

Congratulations to all our award winners as you know go to a special place in the record books of one of the most historic teams that junior has!

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Now onto who will represent Montreal this season!

First Assistant: Walter Hobbs
-Hobbs has been nothing but a leader in the locker room in Montreal, we decided to not only reward him with the A on his helmet, but some increased ice-time this season. This is another second year player for the Militia that is ready for a leading role on this teamâ€™s future.

Second Assistant: Rahotrp Tutankhamun
-Tut was on our shortlist, and to be honest, he should have been taken earlier considering how active and how much help he has provided to this team even before hitting the ice. This was also a pretty easy decision to make based on how mature he is beyond his rookie years would indicate.

Team Captain: Viktor Valentine
-After all the awards Valentine took home, and looking better then ever to have yet another breakout season this year, it was a pretty easy vote to see Valentine get the C sewn onto his jersey for the upcoming season.

Congratulations to all of you, Iâ€™m sure you will represent the Montreal Militia very well!</div>

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We also had a chance to catch GM Mika Aalto leaving practice after watching his new draftees, and asked him a few questions.

Montreal Gazette: Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to answer a few of these for us, first one is, how did the draft go? Did you get the players you set out to get?

Mika Aalto: No problem, it went better then we could of thought. Going into it, all the interviews and physicals, this draft class looked a little thin compared to years past, but after getting the players we did and seeing them on the ice, we were very happy to bring in that big of a crop for this rebuilding team. And we definitely had our own shortlist, and we hit most of them.

MG: Why did you guys decide to trade away pick 1 and 2 for players and picks?

MA: Basically, we had our guy at 3, and to bring in a little experience plus more players we felt would drop to later picks, was a no brainer for a team like us that need all the help we can get for the next few years.

MG: Preseason is upon us, what do you like and dislike so far?

MA: Itâ€™s been a very promising look into the future here, we have a handful of our rookies in the top 10 of scoring so far, it looks as if right now, some of these rookies are ready to make a big impact right away, which is great for us.

MG: What are expectations for the upcoming season? Do you think this team is a contender or a playoff bubble team?

MA: As a rebuilding team, we arenâ€™t expecting big things out of the players or the team together, but like I said, preseason looks to be much better then we could have hoped, you know these guys donâ€™t want to take a year off until we think this team can be a real contender, these players want to win now, and you can see it in the way they are playing. I think we are a bubble team, but the SMJHL is so close anymore its hard to tell who will end up where, but if we make the last spot, we could be a dark horse, we have done it before, and we could do it again.

MG: Talk about the controversy surrounded Mister Shit? How have former players and management helped?

MA: You know, this league likes to blow things up, yeah he has said a few things that went the greatest, and we sat right after picking him and said, you know, get it together or your out of here, and even though that suspension came down when it did, he has been nothing but supportive in the locker room and we hope really got the message and can be that steal of the draft and prove to these other teams they missed out.

There you have it folks, awards, captains named, and nice little chat to get Montreal fans hyped for the upcoming season!

AssPancakes · 03-25-2018, 05:06 PM

Next season. We all know who is going to win all the awards! None the less great article!

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