Bomber starting goalie Matt Kieper has been named this year's SJHL most valuable player and goalie of the year.
The SJHL's league honours were announced March 19, with the Winnipeg native bringing home two of the SJHL's biggest honours.
Kieper joined the Bombers about a month into the season, but helped change the Bombers’ fortunes dramatically since heading north. Through 27 regular season games in maroon and white, the Winnipeg-based netminder lost just twice in regulation, going 23-2-1-1 while leading the SJHL in goals-against-average (1.80) and save percentage (.935). Kieper is also third in the SJHL in wins (23) and shutouts (three), behind only Weyburn’s Angelo Zol and Melfort’s Kristian Coombs, both of whom have played hundreds of more minutes in net than Kieper.
Kieper has also played both legs of back-to-back games six times this year, going 5-0-0-1 in the second night of back-to-backs, while giving up four goals or more in a game only four times in his 27 starts.
Yorkton's Jaron Desnoyers and Melfort's Reilley Kotai were also nominated for the MVP honour, while Coombs and Kindersley's Ethan O'Halloran were both nominated for goalie of the year.
Kieper is the first Bomber to win the league MVP award in almost a quarter-century. The last Bomber player to earn MVP was Morgan Cey, the Bombers' goaltender during their 2001 RBC Cup finalist run, who won the award for the 2000-01 season.
Elsewhere in the league, Melfort's Kotai was honoured as the SJHL's top scorer and the Mustangs' Nic Andrusiak was named the league's best defenceman. Yorkton's Desnoyers was named the league's forward of the year, while Weyburn's Max Chakrabarti was named rookie of the year. Melfort coach Trevor Blevins was named SJHL coach of the year for the first time, while Melville's Jadon Iyogun was named the SJHL's most sportsmanlike player.
Two other Bombers were also nominated for SJHL league awards. Forward Koen Senft was nominated as the league's Saskatchewan player of the year along with Melfort's Zac Somers and the eventual winner, La Ronge Ice Wolf defender Rylan Silzer.
Forward Joey Lies is one of five nominees for the SJHL's community ambassador award. No winner for the award was announced, but a public vote for the award's winner is now up on the SJHL's website.
