OHL COACH & GOALIE OF ThE YEAR

[skatee]

Will be announced this afternoon on a conference call at 12:30 p.m.
For those lurking on the forum before then.. any predictions!?

[GoDogsGo]

goalie... mason or dahm... coach... hmmm...
great news, keep us posted....

[WellandDogsFan]

Goalie... Juice from the Soo
Coach... PD from Kitch

[skatee]

the winners are... drumroll....

GOALIE:
Toronto, ON – The Ontario Hockey League today announced that Mike Murphy of the Belleville Bulls has been named the OHL Goaltender of the Year for the 2007-08 season.

Murphy, a 19-year-old native of Inverary, ON, was 36-7-3-1 with a league best 2.24 goals against average and .929 save percentage to go along with three shutouts in 49 games this season.

Murphy held the opposition to two or fewer goals on 29 occasions this season, including a streak of four straight games in January where he allowed just one goal per game. Murphy started the season with a six game winning streak and also enjoyed a nine-game winning streak in January. He helped the Bulls win the Eastern Conference regular season title and set new team records for wins (48) and points (102) in a season.

Murphy, the Bulls fourth round pick in the 2005 OHL Priority Selection, represented Belleville in the 2008 OHL All-Star Classic in Sault Ste. Marie in January, helping the Eastern Conference to an 8-7 win over the Western Conference. He was twice named OHL goaltender of the month.

The OHL Goaltender of the Year is awarded to the league’s most outstanding goaltender as selected by OHL coaches and general managers. Teams were not permitted to vote for a goaltender from their own hockey club. Goaltenders received five points for a first place vote, three points for a second place vote and one point for a third place vote.

Murphy received 54 points in the voting process, followed by Steve Mason of the Kitchener Rangers, who received 47 points. Thomas McCollum of the Guelph Storm finished third with 39 points.

Murphy follows past winners like Adam Dennis, Ray Emery, Andrew Raycroft and Manny Legace as well as Jeff Fife (1989-90) as the only other Bull to win the award. Mason was the OHL’s goaltender of the year last season.
Murphy will be formally presented with the award during the 2007-08 OHL Awards Ceremony, which will be held on Wednesday June 4 at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

# # #

COACH

Toronto, ON – The Ontario Hockey League today announced that Bob Boughner of the Windsor Spitfires won the Matt Leyden Trophy as the OHL’s Coach of the Year for the 2007-08 season.

In just his second season behind the Spitfires’ bench, Boughner guided the team to a 41-15-7-5 record that left them tied for third overall in the OHL with 94 points this season, a 51 improvement over the previous season. It was only the third time in franchise history that they achieved 40 or more wins in a season and the second time that they achieved 90 or more points.

Boughner, a 37-year-old Windsor native, purchased the Spitfires along with Warren Rychel and Peter Dobrich in 2006. He guided them to an 18-43-2-5 record in his first season behind the bench. After graduating from the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds in 1991, Boughner played 10 seasons in the National Hockey League with the Buffalo Sabres, Nashville Predators, Pittsburgh Penguins, Calgary Flames, Carolina Hurricanes and Colorado Avalanche before retiring in 2006.

The Spitfires started this season with five straight wins and enjoyed a seven game winning streak in November. They finished the season with eight wins in their final nine games.

Past winners of the Matt Leyden Trophy include Dale Hunter, Brian Kilrea, Craig Hartsburg, Jacques Martin, George Armstrong and Terry Crisp. He is the first coach of the Spitfires to win the award.

The Matt Leyden Trophy is voted on by the member teams of the Ontario Hockey League. In a first round of balloting, teams vote for the top coaches, within their own conference. The top three nominees from both the Eastern and Western conferences are declared as finalists. A second round of voting is then conducted on a league wide basis where teams vote for any of the six finalists. At no time during the voting can a team vote for their own candidate. Coaches receive five points for a first place vote, three points for a second place vote and one point for a third place vote.

Boughner received 57 points in the voting while Peter DeBoer of the Kitchener Rangers finished second with 45 points and George Burnett of the Belleville Bulls was third with 44 points.

The Matt Leyden Trophy has been awarded annually since 1972, to the Coach of the Year in the Ontario Hockey League. The award is in recognition of the contributions of Matt Leyden, past President of the Ontario Hockey Association from 1965-1967. The Oshawa native was honored as a lifetime member of the OHA in 1972.

Boughner will be formally presented with the award during the 2007-08 OHL Awards Ceremony, which will be held on Wednesday June 4 at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

[ItsGameTime]

congrats to both, Boughner definitely did a good job with a young team in Windsor.

[GoDogsGo]

great info thanks...
congrats to both.

[skatee]

you have to give credit to murphy for the job he has done this season.. I think he was a bit of a darkhorse

[Phil Margonis]

good calls on both. i love murphy, he's so athletic

boughner had a very young team to work with and got them through the loss of Renaud.

[skatee]

The Ontario Hockey League held a media conference call today to announce that Bob Boughner won the Matt Leyden Trophy as the OHL’s Coach of the Year and Mike Murphy of the Belleville Bulls was named OHL Goaltender of the Year for the 2007-08 season.

Conference Call Transcript:


Bob Boughner:

“This is quite an honour I must say.”

“I think from my first year with 18 wins and probably the youngest team in the CHL, from where we came and where we got to this year. At training camp, our goal was just to try to get into the top eight teams and get into the playoffs. As the season went on, we had a pretty good start and readjusted those goals in probably January to say that hey we think that we have a chance to win our division and win our conference.”

“As the season went and the tragedy hit, obviously hockey was secondary at that point. As a coach, the biggest thing I’ll have to face was trying to get a bunch of teenagers and myself and our families through that tragedy. There was no manual for it or direction on what to do and what’s right or what’s wrong. It was just a huge life lesson for everybody. That was probably my biggest hurdle of the year. Obviously to see what the guys did at the end of the season and how hard they played was just a credit to the players.”

“It was a little disappointing to lose in the first round but all in all when I look back it was a season that we exceeded our expectations and we proved to ourselves that we could be one of the best in the league. We’ve got a lot of work to do next year but we like where we are coming from.”

“I think as a player playing that long in the NHL, I obviously had quite a few different coaches and I’ve taken bits and pieces from every coach. As a player you like some things and you don’t like some things about how someone runs a team and I sort of peeled away everything that as a player I really enjoyed and really used to my benefit. I try to bring that to the table every night here.”

“I consider myself a player’s coach. Trying to get the best out of these guys every night is difficult. Coming from the pros as a player you know your job and if you can’t do your job you are in the minors or you are in the press box and someone else will do it for you. Here, it’s development. It’s learning to deal with the mistakes and correcting them with positive reinforcement and making sure that you are a mentor to these kids. It’s different. Your expectations have to change when you come back to junior hockey from the pros.”

Mike Murphy:

“It’s a great honour. I’m sure it was a very difficult choice. The calibre of goaltending in the OHL this year was unbelievable, It’s definitely an honour to get this award.”

“Definitely going into the start of the season, everyone knew that we had a great hockey team and I was definitely the question mark because I hadn’t really played in too many games last year. I started off in the summer working really hard. I wanted to stay in Belleville. I love the fans here and it’s a great organization. I worked hard early on and worked with an unbelievable goalie coach in Sebastien Farrese who worked with Kevin Lalande and also Sebastian Dahm. I listened to him all year.”

“The winning streak was great to have and I just kind of progressed through the year and developed. I was shocked to make the all-star game and here we are now number one in the league – it’s been a great year so far.”

# # #

[WellandDogsFan]

Good picks indeed. I didnt even think of Murphy before I suggest Juice should win. The OHL got this right.

Congrats to Murphy and Boughner

[fishfan51]

the winners are... drumroll....


COACH

Toronto, ON – The Ontario Hockey League today announced that Bob Boughner of the Windsor Spitfires won the Matt Leyden Trophy as the OHL’s Coach of the Year for the 2007-08 season..


What????? Not Cheech? :w00t:

[WellandDogsFan]

What????? Not Cheech? :w00t:
Even I wasnt expecting Cheech to win coach of the year.:cheers2:

[fishfan51]

Even I wasnt expecting Cheech to win coach of the year.:cheers2:

Do you expect me to believe that? :P

[Phil Margonis]

lol yeah don't lie WDF :p

[WellandDogsFan]

Absolutely guys:D