FOR over four decades, George Gwozdecky has been coaching and achieving great success.
The latest accolades for the Thunder Bay product came last week as he guided his Valor Christian Eagles to a Colorado State High School Championship, with a 7-3 victory over the rival Ralston Valley Mustangs.
Ironically, the win came at Magness Arena on the campus of Denver University where Gwozdecky built the DU Pioneers into a NCAA front-runner while serving as their head coach for 19 seasons.
The triumph for Gwozdecky was the most recent accomplishment that the veteran bench boss has attained in his career.
Situated in suburban Denver, Valor Christian has won the Colorado high school crown three of the past four years and has made five straight appearances in the final.
At the helm of the Eagles’ program for eight seasons now, Gwozdecky has built them into a state powerhouse since his first year at the helm when they were bounced 10-1 by the same Mustangs in their opening game of the 2016 tournament.
He also remains actively involved in the conference rules committee along with the Team Colorado high school evaluation camp.
Prior to joining Valor, he was an assistant coach for two seasons with the Tampa Bay Lightning, that featured a trip to the Stanley Cup final in 2015 where they fell to the Chicago Blackhawks.
Gwozdecky was also the cornerstone to Denver’s on-ice success for nearly two decades.
In his tenure at DU, his teams won 20 or more games on 16 occasions and captured two NCAA Frozen Four crowns. The Pioneers also won multiple Western Collegiate Hockey Association regular season and playoff championships under his watch.
A three-time recipient of the WCHA Coach of the Year award, Gwozdecky went on to garner national top coach laurels twice.
He remains the only person in NCAA hockey history to win a championship as a player (1977), assistant coach (1986) and head coach (2004 & ’05) at Wisconsin, Michigan State and Denver respectively.
Meanwhile, his 593 career wins as a NCAA head coach place him in the Top 20 overall.
Gwozdecky’s success earned him enshrinement into the Northwestern Ontario Sports Hall of Fame back in 2010 as well as more recently, the Denver University Athletics Hall of Fame and the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.
CONFERENCE HONOURS: A solid year on the ice for Thunder Bay’s Fletcher Anderson saw him recognized off it.
Earlier this month, Anderson was tabbed co-Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) player of the year for his play.
A point-per-game forward at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Anderson registered 28 in as many WIAC outings on 14 goals and 14 assists.
Additionally, the sophomore earned a place on the All-WIAC men’s hockey team for 2022-23.
Still competing, Anderson and the rest of his Pointers’ teammates won the WIAC title by topping UW-Eau Claire 5-1 in the final.
Moving on to the NCAA D-III tournament, UWSP survived a four-overtime marathon Saturday as they defeated Augsburg 2-1.
That lengthy victory puts them into a quarter-final meeting at Adrian College of Michigan this weekend.
ALL–STAR: Thunder Bay’s Travis Hensrud was honoured by the Manitoba Junior Hockey League a week ago by being named a second team MJHL All-Star.
Heading into the final days of their regular season, Hensrud sits tied for fourth in MJHL scoring with 68 points, including 33 tallies.
He’ll be off to attend school and play NCAA Division I hockey at Northern Michigan in the fall.
Another local note has Lakehead product Michael Stubbs putting up solid numbers for the Centennial Cup-host Portage Terriers.
Since joining Portage in January, Stubbs has played at over a point-per-game clip with 27 in 25 contests.
He’s currently riding a nine-game point streak and has etched his name on the game sheet in 12 of his last 13 appearances.