The awards and accolades continued to roll in for the Trail Smoke Eaters players on Wednesday.
The BCHL announced that Kent Johnson was named the league’s Most Valuable Player, earning the Vern Dye Memorial Trophy, along with the Bob Fenton Trophy for Most Sportsmanlike.
Not to be outdone, Smokies goalie Logan Terness won the BCHL Rookie of the Year Award for his stellar play between the pipes this year.
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Johnson beat out Coquitlam standout goaltender Clay Stevenson and Cowichan defenceman Dimitri Mikrogiannakis for the title of MVP. With 41 goals and 60 assists this season, the 17-year-old from Port Moody led the league in almost every scoring category, including goals, assists, power-play goals and power-play assists.
He was also 30 points ahead of the next closest player and has led the league in scoring consistently since early November. Johnson is the first Smoke Eater to win the league MVP since the league started giving the award to only one recipient. Smoke Eater alumni Brent Baltus won the award in 2013 alongside co-winner Mitch Gillam of the Chilliwack Chiefs.
Johnson joins an illustrious list of previous winners that includes current NHLers Tyson Jost and Kyle Turris along with NHL alumni Brett Hull, Ray Ferraro, Paul Kariya and current Smoke Eaters head coach Jeff Tambellini.
Along with the league MVP award Johnson was also named the recipient of the Bob Fenton Trophy as the leagues Most Sportsmanlike Player. In 52 games, Johnson totaled just 14 penalty minutes while averaging some of the highest time on ice in the league. Johnson joins Kyle Jones, the 2003 recipient, as the only Smoke Eater to win this award.
Terness’ Rookie of the Year nod comes as a result of his 27 wins in 44 games, which tied the Smoke Eaters single season wins record this year while putting up the top-5 numbers in the league. The Burnaby native finished second in games played, third in wins and in save percentage at 0.932. He finished with the fourth best goals against average at 2.36 and finished with the most saves of all goaltenders with more than 1300 shots stopped this season.
Terness joins Smoke Eaters alumni Justin St. Louis (2004) and Craig Clare (1998) as Rookie of the Year recipients. Terness is the first Smoke Eater goaltender to win this award and the first goalie in 20 years, with Sean Fields of the Penticton Panthers organization winning it in 1999-2000.
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