10 Finalists Named for Patty Kazmaier Award

10 finalists have been named for this year’s Patty Kazmaier Award, given annually to the top women’s college hockey player.

Here are this year’s finalists:

Skylar Fontaine, Defense, Northeastern

Aerin Frankel, Goalie, Northestern

Taylor Heise, Forward, Minnesota

Gabbie Hughes, Forward, Minnesota Duluth

Sophie Jaques, Defense, Ohio State

Alina Mueller, Forward, Northeastern

Casey O’Brien, Forward, Wisconsin

Theresa Schafzahl, Forward, Vermont

Daryl Watts, Forward, Wisconsin

This might be one of the deepest groups and hardest choices for this award in some time. The finalists include three former winners of the award: Aerin Frankel(2021), Elizabeth Giguere(2020), and Daryl Watts(2018), and yet while all three deserve strong consideration, none are likely considered favorites for the award.

In addition to the former winners, a convincing argument could be made for players like Taylor Heise, who leads the nation in scoring, Sophie Jaques, the nation’s leading defensive scorer, Theresa Schafzahl, who led Vermont to some unprecedented successes this year, or Gabbie Hughes, who joins the extremely rare club of being a finalist for both the Patty Kaz and Hockey Humanitarian Award in the same year.

It’s a strong list to choose from and voters will have to make some difficult decisions on their final ballot.