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Nominations sought for Jeff Sauer Award

By Michael Trzinski, WiPH Staff & Submitted, 01/08/19, 5:15PM CST

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Deadline for nomination is January 31

The second annual Jeff Sauer Award will be presented at the Wisconsin Hockey Coaches Association Awards Banquet Feb. 27. University of Wisconsin head coach Tony Granato will present the award on the eve of the WIAA State Hockey Tournament.

The annual award was designed to encourage community service among girls and boys high school hockey players in Wisconsin. It is named after Jeff Sauer, the legendary former University of Wisconsin coach and hockey ambassador, who died in February, 2017.

The Jeff Sauer Award’s goal is to recognize good high school hockey players being great people. It is modeled after the Hockey Humanitarian Award, which is presented annually to college hockey’s finest citizen and seeks to recognize players, male or female, who contribute to local communities in a true humanitarian spirit.

The Coach Sauer Foundation would like to encourage community service among players and ask that coaches nominate a player who has stood out at their school and in their community for doing good things. Please submit the nomination from your team by January 31. 

Shane Ryan, a senior goaltender from Madison Edgewood High School, was the first recipient of the Jeff Sauer Award. Ryan is a worthy example.

Shane completed 230 hours of volunteer service. In the last four years Ryan worked as an umpire and a groundskeeper at the Madison West Side Little League fields. He also created a fundraiser that provided scholarships to give to families that couldn’t afford baseball equipment. Shane raised $10,000 for families at the Little League complex. Shane had a 4.03 grade point average and now attends the University of Wisconsin. As a three-year player at Edgewood, Ryan had a 14-9-1 record with a 2.23 goals against average and an .898 save percentage.

The other finalists were Russell Albee, a junior goaltender from the Brookfield Stars; Maddie Gibson, a junior forward from the Bay Area Ice Bears, and Baileigh Johnson, a senior forward from Black Rivers Falls Co-op.