ECRHA All-Star Weekend Recap

The ECRHA All Star Weekend has come to its completion with wonderful memories of great competition and fun filled Featured games. On Saturday, 3 games were highlighted including a staff game, an All-star game, and a DI ? DIII Grudge game. The weekend was also topped off with the ECRHA Semi-Annual League meeting, which always makes an impact on the League and our operations. The first ever ECRHA Scholarships were also announced. Here is your chance to hear what was missed during the All Star half time and Award presentation when an ailing PA system put a small hamper on the weekend. President?s Speech: At the start of the Staff game, I mentioned, ?celebrate our success?. This weekend is a tribute to that success and testimony to your accomplishments as participants of the ECRHA. Even though our staff is key to our organization and even though I will now publicly recognize specific players and teams, no one person is responsible for our achievements. They are collective triumphs with contributions from all of you. And while our Board of Directors reflects the leaders in all of us, our greatest asset is you; our players, participants, and supporters. Tomorrow morning at our semi-annual league meeting, we have nominations and voting for annual Board Positions. I urge you all to find a way to get involved with the league next season. All ACC reps must be at this meeting. Any players, who would like to attend, please have your rep notify me since space is limited. Teams not in attendance will be fined. Earlier, I also mentioned REMEMBRANCE and RENEWAL. While this All Star game marks the near completion of our season?it really is one more milestone in our journey for continuous improvement as people, and the pursuit of college roller hockey. At the funeral of his son Jeffrey, when asked the relationship between myself and his family, I quote my friend David Mosenson as he referred to me and his son?s as ?Trying to change the world with Roller Hockey?; and indeed that is what we are all doing. I also quote John Mosenson, an inspiring high school junior who is getting involved with us and sat in on a CRHL meeting with me: as he was running out to play in his hockey game, his lasting words on the way out, to me Huck and Andy, were ?ok guys, get it all right. This is my future.? As we near the end of this season and prepare for Championships you can see that many of CRHL and ECRHA program results are trending in the right direction; but we still have many challenges as a young sport and a young organization. The bottom-line is we ARE changing the world with roller hockey and we ARE your future, and we must continue to build on our program and work together - to find smarter ways to spread the word of college roller hockey. We must focus on building athletes and well-rounded individuals and look for areas that give us the greatest opportunities to improve support; engaging each other in the processes to achieve goals.

In the ECRHA, team building and community service are the backbone to our organization. And while we acknowledge, that we are only as successful as the entire league; Leaders are key to our Success.

This marks our second annual awards presentation. I am pleased to announce the first ever ECRHA Scholarships for college roller hockey.

The ECRHA Ron Dax Scholarship will be awarded to a current ECRHA undergrad student. And the ECRHA Jeffrey Mosenson Scholarship will be awarded to a high school senior. While both scholarships are just at a minimum of $250 each, we seek to grow them immediately before awarding them later this Spring. Thanks to a private donation of $500, we can begin to make scholarships a reality. Ironically, ECRHA?s first private donation was made by Jeffrey Mosenson himself and his family not even 6 months ago.

We are also exploring relationships with the high school population as we engage ourselves with our first high school roller hockey affiliation on Long Island.

Before I hand out 6 Awards, I would like to thank several people: At last year?s awards in Williamsport, we honored our ECRHA founders, Nick Sally, Brendan Brennan, Ben Picker, and Jon Huck. I would like to give extra thanks to Jon Huck, who without him, the ECRHA would not be as grounded, and I might not even be here today (well I probably would have found my way here eventually). Thank you, Jon Huck, for entrusting me with the leadership of ECRHA. Even in our bumpiest rides, I still have more gratitude then you may know for what you have done and what you have led me to in this league. I would also like to thank Andy Macmillan the Executive Director of the CRHL; Benny Gulakiw, the ECRHA development director; USA Hockey Inline; and Pat Cummins, our assistant Webmaster. NOW ON TO THE AWARDS First, I?d like to congratulate Bert Archer of Drexel University. At 2:45pm, Bert played in his 100th ever-collegiate roller hockey game. That is an amazing achievement and says a lot about what we are all doing here. These awards are given in appreciation for commitment and community service and for upholding the values that set standards in the League; Education, Dedication, Motivation. The first award to be presented today is for Leadership and goes to an Individual who is a stand out asset to his team. Last year this Leadership award was presented to our official Chris Rabatin for his Commitment Loyalty and Dedication of service to the ECRHA. This year?s recipient is all this and more to his own College Roller Hockey Club and is valued by us for his support in all ways of ECRHA and CRHL programs. I cannot state all of his achievements within his club and before his university but I know his club would agree that he is more then deserving of this simple certificate. Mike Bowman, Penn State Altoona. The next two awards are team awards for Community Service projects. Last years recipients were Rochester Institute of Technology and James Madison University.

While a few teams and players such as Hofstra and North VA Community College traveled many miles to participate in the Brian Lutwick charity event on Long Island, this community service award is presented to Syracuse University for their participation and charitable gifts to the Brian Lutwick event that featured the NYS Organ Donors Association. (and no, they did not donate any organs that day) Evan Degorter will accept the award on behalf of Syracuse.

This next community service award is presented to Penn State Altoona for the very successful orchestration of a celebrity charity ice hockey game in which even their school?s CEO and Dean attended. I also would like to thank Coach Kevin Murphy for his commitment and motivation in coaching our ECRHA Select Hockey teams.

Earlier this season we embarked on a new venture called Hockey College. Hockey College is a free clinic for the community youth of the facilities that we travel to. Rinks donate the time and participants of ECRHA facilitate the free clinic. While members of ECRHA instruct the kids, going to college is also emphasized. Over 70 children this season participated in this program. I would like to thank the individuals who involved themselves with this project, but 2 teams were stand out contributors. Ironically, the first team is an ECRHA Affiliate, not even yet a full time ECRHA Member. They are surely recognizable as what we look to in future clubs. Thank you Briarcliff College of Long Island. And by no coincidence, once again, thank you Penn State Altoona. (Bowman comes forward to accept the award) Before I make the last presentation, I would like to thank Concretepond.com for their Player of the month Awards. Months were combined so that only 4 actual players were chosen by Concretepond.com. October?s player of the month was Matt Cubeta from the University of Rhode Island and November/December?s player was Dave Thomas from the University of Pittsburgh. Both players received gifts from Concretepond.com Now finally, the last award is the President?s Award. The recipient of the first President?s Award was Michael Burke and he is by far a tough act to follow. But among the league emerged a player who just showed up one day and recognized the very details of what Burke and I deal with behind the scenes every day. And then he ?just did?. There?s a phrase that goes ?It?s not what you know, it?s who you know?. As John Maxwell says, the truth of the matter is that the phrase does have merit. But this is because when you get to know people closely and form friendships with them, their standout qualities are more evident to you then to others. When you get to know people on a closer level then merely ?that hockey player with the backwards hands? or ?the red head with the long finger nails? they seem to feel more comfortable contributing their efforts to the same causes that you believe in. This years President?s Award goes to Kris Foley. Thank you for sticking around with us, and enjoy the rest of the All Star Game.