March 13, 2023 at 8:47 a.m.
Losch, Roeser, Schneider share Hodag hockey's Al Baker Award
Losch, Roeser, Schneider share Hodag hockey's Al Baker Award
For the first time in the award's history, there were three recipients of the award.
Leo Losch, Layne Roeser and Sam Schneider were all named winners of the team's top honor during a season-ending banquet at the RHS commons.
On four separate occasions, coach M.J. Laggis has had dual winners of the award - most recently in 2018-19 when Freddy Wisner and Bridger Flory shared the honor - but never three. In explaining the decision during Thursday's banquet, Laggis simply said it was the right thing to do.
"What I care about is that you pick and put people on there that truly deserve it and people that are there for the right reasons," he said. "The best way I can put it is it wouldn't sit right with me if I didn't do that."
The trio certainly has the numbers, and the character off the ice, to fit the award's stated goal to recognize "an outstanding senior hockey player who has shown good sportsmanship, hard work and dedication to the goals of the hockey program."
Losch and Roeser also shared the team's MVP award after being two of the team's top three scorers this season. Schneider, who was fifth on the team in scoring, was also one of two recipients of the Hobey Baker Character Award, along with senior teammate Cody Everson.
Losch finished the season second on the team with 22 goals and 48 total points. His 26 assists were tied for the team lead.
"He's been an absolute backbone of our program and one of our hardest workers," Laggis said. "It speaks to the culture you create when people want to hang around together and be together. Leo was a huge part of that. He was just an absolute backbone, hard-working, goal-scoring guy game in and game out and it was a pleasure (to coach him)."
Roeser was third on the team with 20 goals and 20 assists on the year. Earning the award came with a bit of history as his dad, Tom, was the second winner of the award back in 1991. Roeser's older brother, Dylan, also won the award back in 2017. The Roesers are the third set of brothers to win the award, joining Tyler and Alex Henkel (2009, 2011) and Kurt and Danny Zuiker (2016, 2020).
"I'll never coach a guy that has the ability to score goals like that - the way he does, the things he says to other players, gets the crowd fired up and all the things that he does," Laggis said. "He's a dynamic player to watch. You can't coach that."
Schneider, who also won the Blue Line Award given to the team's top defenseman, finished the season with seven goals and 21 assists.
"He's got so much skill, it's unbelievable," Laggis said. "How often do you have a defenseman of his ability apologizing to his team for taking a penalty and being that total team guy. You can put him on the ice in any situation and he's going to be the exact, same, confident guy.
"He's just a really talented kid. And I'd say this, if you asked me to give you a list of the top three people I know - not hockey players, top three people - he's one of them for sure. He's a fantastic kid. We're going to miss him."
Those traits are what helped earn Schneider and Everson the Hobey Baker Award presented by the same organization who presents an award of the same name annual to the most outstanding collegiate hockey player. The foundation allows high school programs to have a senior or seniors honored based on the criteria of coachability, strength of character, integrity, commitment, teamwork, community leadership and outstanding sportsmanship.
"There's not a youth hockey or baseball player that doesn't know Sam or Sam hasn't helped them or coached them at the Y or whatever. That character stands out," Laggis said. "Cody is a guy that will do anything. If you say, 'Cody, I'm going to move you on the other power play.' Instead of the head down, poor me (attitude), it's 'what can I do to help the team.' That's exactly what he's about."
In other awards handed out on Thursday, senior AJ Turek was named the most improved player, junior Gavin Denis was named Mr. Hustle, junior Joey Belanger earned the Playmaker award and Everson won the Hodag award.
Turek finished the year with nine goals and six assists on the Hodags' second line. Denis, who skated on the top line with Losch and sophomore Zach Edyvean, had 12 goals and 17 assists. Belanger anchored the second line and was the Hodags' top scorer on the season with 28 goals and 26 assists, despite missing both playoff games due to a hand injury. Everson, part of Rhinelander's strong senior defensive core, had five goals and three assists on the season.
Additionally, Laggis presented assistant coach Dave Denis with the Wisconsin Hockey Coaches Association's Section 2 assistant coach of the year award. That award was voted upon by the coaches in Section 2 of the WIAA tournament bracket.
"Some of the things he brings to the table, if you're not in the inner-workings, you don't see it," Laggis said. "He's there sharpening skates on a drop of a dime. He's a guy helping out in the locker room, getting uniforms to his wife to wash. He's helping get things for the team, getting stuff ordered for the end of the year because of something I forgot. He's just everywhere. If we're in a two-hour practice over Christmas and we need the ice done, he jumps off the ice, gets his skates off and gets on the Zam(boni). He does it all. He's a fantastic hockey guy. He's one of the better skills, skating coaches that I've been around. He does some really good edge stuff and is a very good skating coach."
The Hodags went 18-6-0 this year, matching last year's squad for the most wins in a season in program history. The senior class compiled a record of 63-34-0 over the last four seasons. Laggis said their legacy will be hard to replace.
"We've got a lot of challenges ahead of our hockey program the next years, for sure," he said.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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