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4 Penticton Vees alumni crack list of nominees for 2022 Hobey Baker Award

The former Vees are among 19 players on the list who played in the B.C. Hockey League
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Easton Brodzinski, Yaniv Perets, Owen Sillinger and Taylor Ward are the four Penticton Vees alumni to be nominated for the Hobey Baker Award in 2022. (Photo courtesy of the Penticton Vees)

The Penticton Vees are well represented on the list of nominations for this year’s Hobey Baker Award.

Four Vees alumni have been nominated for the prestigious award presented annually to the college hockey’s best player, the team announced on Thursday (Jan. 13).

Easton Brodzinski, Yaniv Perets, Owen Sillinger and Taylor Ward are the former Vees who cracked the initial list released by the NCAA.

The college hockey standouts are among the 19 players on this year’s list that used to play in the B.C. Hockey League (BCHL) out of the 77 total nominees.

Sillinger played three seasons in Penticton while spending time as the team’s captain. The forward scored 66 career goals and added 87 assists in 176 games during his BCHL career.

Meanwhile, Ward also played three full seasons in the South Okanagan before committing to the University of Nebraska-Omaha at the start of the 2018-2019 NCAA campaign. Brodzinski and Perets also enjoyed stints in Penticton, with the latter backstopping the Vees in the crease for 37 games during the 2019-2020 season.

The Hobey Baker Award has been presented to the NCAA’s best hockey player every year since 1981 with fellow Penticton alumni and B.C.’s own Paul Kariya taking home the honours in 1993. Kariya is the only Hobey Baker Award winner ever to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

More recent winners of the prestigious award include Montreal Canadiens winger Cole Caufield and Colorado Avalanche superstar defenseman, Cale Makar.

The 2022 edition of the award will be presented to the eventual winner on April 8 with the first round of voting ending on March 6.

Fan voting for the award is officially open and will take place at hobeybaker.com.

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