Beavers hand out hardware
Bear, Bauman win major awards
April 15, 2008
The Beausejour Beavers handed out their annual team awards recently and the winners came as no surprise.
During a small presentation in the Sun Gro Centre’s SICU Room, goaltender Chris Bear received the Louie Fuerst Memorial Trophy as Beausejour’s most valuable player while sniper Travis Bauman came out on top in the points race for the TKS Agencies Cup.
“What can you really say about these two,” Beausejour coach Chris Wielgsoh said. “We had an excellent season and it would not have been possible without them.”
The Beavers had a sparkling 16-4 record and two overtime losses in their 2007-2008 campaign leaving them tied for top spot overall with the Springfield 98’s. Getting past Gimli in the playoff semifinals, Beausejour lost the Manitoba East Hockey League finals in a well played series to Selkirk.
Along the way the Beavers became an offensive juggernaut finishing the season with three players in the top five in league scoring including Bauman, Brendan Young and Chris Stelmack. To his credit, Bauman led the entire MEHL in points with 29 goals and 33 assists for 62 points in 22 games.
The TKS Agencies Cup – donated by former Beausejour Comets standout Todd Krebs – is similar to the Winnipeg Jets Molson Cup three stars selections where players earned points for being first, second or third star of every home game.
Points were tabulated at season’s end.
When the dust settled in Beausejour, Bauman finished ahead of Stelmack and Bear.
“Travis is one of the hardest working guys in the league and it showed,” Wielgosh said. “Not only did he lead the league in scoring he’s also one of the best two-way players going.”
For all the offensive skill possessed by the Beavers this season, Bear’s play was the difference on many nights. Logging 1,020 minutes of ice time, he had a league best record of 13-3 with a goals against average of 4.68.
Bear’s efforts did not go unnoticed by the league’s executive as he was also selected as the MEHL’s most valuable player in February.
“With all the offence we had we did get ourselves into trouble defensively on the ice at times and Chris was able to bail us out,” Wielgsoh said. “He won several games for us this year an was obviously our best player.”
First presented to Ron Radons in 1971, the Louie Fuerst Memorial Trophy is one of the longest serving individual team trophies in Manitoba senior hockey.
Looking over the names on the now fragile award – which includes Bill Wayne, Mouse Gmiterek, Darren Puhacz, Jody Wielgosh and last year’s winner Chris Stelmack – Bear was honoured to be in such good company.
“Every time a goalie wins an award like this everybody knows it’s a team award,” Bear said. “It really is an honour and I’d like to share this with everybody.”
60th anniversary
The 2008-2009 season will be a special one for the Beausejour senior team as they will celebrate 60 years since first hitting the ice under the Beavers name in 1958.
The Beavers have already begun fundraising for the 60th anniversary season and are looking for local business support. Anyone interested in becoming an official ‘Beaver Believer’ sponsor can call 268-4284 or 795-0292 or go to the website at www.beausejourbeavers.com for more information.
Travis Bauman (left) won the TKS Agencies Cup Three Stars Award while Chris Bear received the Louie Fuerst Memorial Trophy as MVP.
