DU Hockey Banquet News & Notes

(above) Jesse Martin credited his teammates, friends and family on Friday night

The Denver Post has an article about Jesse Martin's speech at the DU Hockey Banquet held on Friday night at the Cable Center.  Jesse is no longer wearing a neck brace, has put on some weight since his injury and looked great on Friday night.

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DenverPioneers.com has a recap of all the award winners, graduating seniors and DU's 16 All-WCHA Academic recipients.

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Well over 200 people attended the event that was first class all the way.  Coach Gwozdecky was especially proud that many of former DU players showed up including Marc Cheverie, Tyler Bozak, Matt Donovan, Gerry Powers, Bruce Hill, Rod Summers, Mark Rycroft, Steven Cook, Charlie Host, Aaron MacKenzie and many others.

He singled out Rod Summers and the DU Hockey Alumni Association for soliciting over 40 former players to contribute to sponsoring the event.  You can tell Summers leadership is paying big dividends already for the program.

The Senior speeches gave an interesting look at the program and one couldn't help but notice the sacrifices these players made to the university and their teammates.  From the guys who barely saw ice time to Anthony Maiani's video that was taped in West Virginia while his ECHL team is in the playoffs.

Jesse Martin's speech was interesting because he refused to dwell on his injury and instead made a point about talking about his teammates and his experiences at DU.  He spoke about enjoying life and making sure that everyone have fun playing hockey, because you never know when it might end.

Chris Nutini mentioned that he'll miss spending time with the guys in the showers.  That brought nervous laughter from his teammates.  Needless to say, he'll have a hard time living that one down.

Kyle Ostrow gave a terrific speech about leading the guys and playing two seasons with his brother Shawn at DU.  Kyle and Shawn both had 4.0 GPA's this season.  Amazing.

All in all a great evening and well worth the price of admission.  The speeches ran a little long, but that was due to the large Senior class [8 players] and not the content of the messengers.