Gopher women’s hockey dominate WCHA awards

The WCHA held their yearly awards banquet last week at TCF Bank Stadium and the Gophers cleaned up. The Minnesota women’s hockey team took home major awards in almost every category.

Of the 22 players on the Golden Gophers roster, 15 of them went home with some hardware by the end of the night. The biggest winner on the evening was junior forward Amanda Kessel.

The Madison, Wis. native walked away with WCHA Player of the Year, the scoring championship, first team honors, and an academic award.

Kessel was one of four  Gophers named to the All-WCHA First Team, out of six available slots.

Head coach Brad Frost was named the WCHA Coach of the Year. Frost led the Maroon and Gold to a perfect 38-0-0 regular season mark and through the weekend’s WCHA Final Face-off, the streak has stretched to 46 straight games. It is the third COY award for Frost, who previously won the award in 2007-08 and 2008-09.

Senior defender Megan Bozek was named the league’s Defensive Player of the Year. She also landed on the first team and received an academic award. This is the second straight year that Bozek was named to the First Team All-Conference.

Between the pipes for the Gophers, senior Noora Raty has accomplished just about everything possible. The Espoo, Finland native was named the WCHA Goaltending Champion as well as to the All-WCHA First Team. She also took home academic honors. It was the second time she had won each of those awards in her career at Minnesota.

The award for best freshmen in the conference went to forward Hannah Brandt. The Ms. Hockey Award winner as a high school star from Hill-Murray landed on the first team, the All-Rookie Team, and was named Rookie of the Year.

While no Gophers were named to the second team, the third team’s roster included three Gophers including sophomore defender Rachel Ramsey (Chanhassen, Minn.), junior forward Kelly Terry (Whitby, Ont.), and senior defender Mira Jalosuo (Lieksa, Finland).

Joining Brandt on the All-WCHA Rookie Team were freshmen forward Maryanne Menefee (Lansing, Mich.) and rookie defender Milicia McMillen (St. Paul, Minn.).

The rest of the awards handed out to the team were in the form of academic honors. As a whole, a dozen Gophers earned a spot on the All-WCHA Academic Team.

Joining the aforementioned members on the academic team are Rachel Bona (Coon Rapids, Minn.), Bethany Brausen (Little Canada, Minn.), Samantha Downey (Hermantown, Minn.), Katie Frischmann (Rochester, Minn.), Baylee Gillanders (Kyle, Sask.), Jalosuo, Becky Kortum (Minnetonka), Ramsey, and Terry.