Gopher hockey's first Big Ten honors: We talk a lot about post-season honors but this one rarely bathes in the light of day. Too bad, because even in an age when players come to UM from elite prep and junior programs and leave early to try their luck in the pro ranks, academic achievement is still an important part of college life.
Even though Big Ten hockey won't start until November, the conference has honored eleven Gopher hockey players on its Academic All-Big Ten Team for the spring semester.
Hockey smarties: Eleven members of the Gopher men's hockey squad and twelve from the women's team are All-Big Ten academic honorees. They're part of 167 UM student athletes to make the spring all-conference brainy bunch.
Men's All-Conference Academic Team:
Mark Alt
Travis Boyd
Zach Budish
Nate Condon
Erik Haula
Seth Helgeson
Justin Holl
Kyle Rau
Nate Schmidt
Tom Serratore
Michael Shibrowski
From the national champion Gopher women's team:
Rachel Bona
Megan Bozek
Bethany Brausen
Samantha Downey
Katie Frischmann
Baylee Gillanders
Mira Jalosuo
Amanda Kessel
Becky Kortum
Rachel Ramsey
Noora Raty
Kelly Terry
Congratulations to all of them!
Big Ten TV schedule update: Okay, there isn't one. I recently spoke with officials of Big Ten Network and they say they are not close to working out a broadcast schedule for the inaugural conference hockey season. As reported here earlier, the Gophers' season schedule has been released but decisions concerning TV coverage are in limbo at FOX Sports North until Big Ten Network decides which games it wants to broadcast. FSN officials say there will definitely be Gophers hockey on the tube next season but BTN has first pick of the conference games.
I'll be following this closely, as you might imagine, and will report here when a Gophers broadcast schedule is finalized.
