Former Tigres captain Lafrance named U Sports player of the year
Simon Lafrance of the UQTR Patriotes has been named the winner of the Senator Joseph A. Sullivan Trophy as the most outstanding player of the year in U SPORTS men’s hockey.
The announcement was made on Wednesday night at the All-Canadian Awards Ceremony at the Delta Hotels by Marriott Prince Edward in Charlottetown, the host city of the 2023 U SPORTS Cavendish Farms University Cup.
Lafrance led the OUA in scoring with 38 points in 23 regular-season games. The third-year right winger scored 16 goals and added 22 assists. His 10 power-play goals were second in the country, and his four game-winners are the most in U SPORTS this season. He was held off the scoresheet only twice this season. He was named U SPORTS men’s hockey player of the week once this season, on Feb. 1, after a seven-point weekend that allowed UQTR to clinch the OUA East pennant.
The St-Eustache product also played for Team Canada at the 2023 FISU Winter World University Games in Lake Placid, N.Y., where he tied for the team lead in assists with eight and finished with 10 points overall in seven games as Canada swept its way to a gold medal for the first time since 2013.
In the OUA playoffs, the former Val d’Or Foreur and Victoriaville Tigre scored four points in six games as the Patriotes won their second straight Queen’s Cup.
Other major award winners include former Rouyn-Noranda goaltender Samuel Richard of UNB, who won the Clare Drake Trophy as rookie of the year; former Charlottetown netminder Matt Welsh of Saint Mary’s, who won the Dr. Randy Gregg Award for student-athlete community service; former Sarnia, Sudbury and Erie forward Troy Lajeunesse of UPEI, who won the R.W. Pugh Trophy for most sportsmanlike player; former Medicine Hat and Regina blueliner Connor Hobbs of Saskatchewan, who was named Defenceman of the Year; Nathan Torchia of Windsor, who was named Goaltender of the Year; and Calgary’s Mark Howell, who won the Father George Kehoe Memorial Award as the Fox40 Coach of the Year.
The 2023 U Sports University Cup opens March 16 and will see more than 140 CHL alumnus take part.
