A Beaver Valley Nitehawks player and volunteer were the proud recipients of the KIJHL Off-Ice Award honours this year.
The league announced that Nitehawks forward and Rossland product Nathan Simm received the Scholastic Player of the Year Award and the Jim Harrington Memorial Award for Volunteer of the Year was given to Bernie Piccolo, an avid Nitehawks fan, volunteer, and contributor.
For the past three years the league has shined a spotlight on Community Player of the Year, Scholastic Player of the Year, Volunteer of the Year and Broadcaster of the Year to commemorate the work of excellence off the ice.
Simm averaged 95 per cent in his studies, which included difficult courses such as Chemistry, Engineering Studies, Math 12, and French Immersion during the season.
Nitehawks head coach-general manager Terry Jones said what Simm accomplished is “incredible” and added, “in most of my career in education, I have not seen a transcript like this.”
Simm completed his first semester of Grade 12 with the intention to become an engineer.
“Nathan is a fantastic person, hard worker and exceptional student,” says Jones. “He is very worthy of this award and we are proud of the exceptional standard of excellence he has demonstrated these past two years while completing high school and competing in hockey at a high level. His transcript speaks for itself with marks in the 90s.”
Piccolo has been a dedicated Nitehawks volunteer for seven years, and in the last five, she has played a crucial role in managing both concessions in the Beaver Valley Arena.
Her responsibilities include scheduling volunteers, ordering stock, and overseeing all aspects of concession management. Her hard work and dedication has significantly contributed to the overall financial success of the hockey club.
“Bernie is a tireless worker who is so committed to our organization and we are beyond lucky to have her involved,” says Nitehawks vice-president Jake Swanson, who also credited the volunteers who help Piccolo regularly.
“She shows up at the rink early to get the concession open for our home games. Bernie is such an important part of our team, I don’t know what we would do without her.”
Piccolo also devotes time to minor hockey, figure skating and other public events to assure they go smoothly.
The Community Player of the Year was awarded forward Taylor Haggerty of the Fernie Ghostriders.
Haggerty was heavily involved in the community and always the first to step up when asked to help.
He went above and beyond in organizing his own community initiatives from running a weekly skating program for special needs kids, to 1:1 mentoring with special needs children, providing emotional support to a family with a child with cancer; volunteered at senior bingo night; Halloween trick-or-treating with children and the Christmas Kettles for the Salvation Army.
For the third straight year, the Broadcaster of the Year went to Kevin McKinnon of the Grand Forks Border Bruins.
“Sportsnet on a budget” found more ways to take their broadcast to another level with intermission player interviews and pre-recorded interviews.
McKinnon does the play-by-play, Cody Thate is the commentator and producer, Les Johnson is the camera operator and Bronwen Bird is the intermission correspondent interviewing the home and visiting players.