DANKOCHIK’S DRAFTINGS: The second annual unofficial Carillon Sports awards
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Another year at The Carillon sports desk is in the books.
We attended more than 260 events this year, took thousands of photos, wrote countless stories, and looking back, here are some highlights.
I’d love to be able to debate and discuss these (fake) awards with others, but it’s just me here at the Carillon. If you think of something I missed this year, I’d love to hear from you. My email is sports@thecarillon.com.
MALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR (local)
Cedric Lagasse is why I want to write this column every year. Winning back-to-back championship most valuable player honours in the Manitoba Junior Baseball League is as impressive as it gets to me, and kind of gets lost in the moment.
Lagasse is a force on the mound, in the field and with his bat for the Carillon Sultans, but it’s his pitching performances that have been so valuable for the local team.
In the past two seasons, he’s gone a combined 4-0 in two best-of-five championship series wins for Carillon, throwing deep into all four games and playing shortstop when he isn’t pitching.
An honourable mention goes to Brandon Thiessen of the Steinbach Huskies, who broke the league’s all-time points record, and Connor Paronuzzi, who was spectacular for the Pistons to close last year’s season, becoming the first Steinbach player to pick up league MVP honours. Doing this column in January is certainly unfair to him.
FEMALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR (local)
Tyra Peters has been an absolute force for the Providence Pilots volleyball team for years now.
The Bothwell product was named the back-to-back best player in the Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference, helping the Pilots to a championship this season.
She also picked up All-Canadian honours and enters her fifth and final season for the Pilots, who are set to host the women’s Canadian college championships this year.
MALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR (non-local)
Pleanty of great candidates here, including USports standouts on the Winnipeg Wesmen CanadaWest championship team, Denton Mateychuk, who has carved out regular ice time with the Columbus Blue Jackets and Jale Kaukirewa who is playing high level sevens rugby in B.C.
But if you played for the Eastman Selects and get drafted by the Winnipeg Jets in the third round of the NHL draft, it’s kind of unfair for the rest of the performances of the year.
Owen Martin had a great run for the Spokane Chiefs as they ran to the Western Hockey League final, and he was selected by the Winnipeg Jets in the meantime.
Winnipeg so rarely selects Manitobans, it was a special moment when the Oakbank product’s name was called in June of this year.
FEMALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR (non-local)
While Raygan Kirk and Joceylne Larocque had strong cases thanks to their play in the Professional Women’s Hockey League, and Larocque’s status as the key piece in the first blockbuster trade in league history, I’m going to include high level curling as non-local and select Kate Cameron here.
Winning Manitoba and qualifying for the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials means you are undisputedly skipping one of the eight best curling teams in Canada.
I’m anticipating some great college performances in the coming years.
FEMALE TEAM OF THE YEAR
Powered by a record-breaking season from Vayda Rigaux, the Eastman Selects won the U18 AAA division of the Manitoba Female Hockey League.
Eastman won the championship in the most dramatic fashion possible, scoring in overtime of a winner-takes-all game inside their home rink to lift the trophy. They continued that strong season into this fall, picking up some prestigious tournament wins.
The dramatic fashion of their championship win pushes them above the Providence Pilots provincial champion volleyball team for me.
MALE TEAM OF THE YEAR
It has to go to the Ste Anne Aces, who dominated what would turn out to be their final season inside the South East Manitoba Hockey League.
The Aces also won their league championship in a winner-takes-all overtime, defeating Springfield in an instant classic of a series.
What pushes them above other standouts like the junior Carillon Sultans or banner-winners in high school is their success at finally winning the provincial championship this year after two consecutive years of falling at that level.
I continue to lament there isn’t an Allan Cup for high-level senior hockey teams to compete for, and this selection might just be my bias for senior hockey teams.
The St Malo Warriors deserve a shout-out, winning back-to-back Capital Region Junior Hockey League championships. The Hanover Kickers earned promotion to Division 1 this year, one step below returning to the Premier Division.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
A few teams/moments from the year that was which didn’t quite fit into my fake award format.
Kudos to the team at the Southeast Event Centre, for working until just moments before the doors opened to host Steinbach Pistons hockey last spring.
The Manitoba 55-plus Games and Canadian College Athletic Association men’s volleyball championships were great to watch and attend, and were hosted in Steinbach and Niverville respectively this year. Congrats to the organizers.
The Eastman Warriors may have taken a step back performance-wise this season, but are becoming a great all-around club, launching a women’s team this year and introducing a rivalry trophy to fight for with the Winnipeg Assassins.