The Greater Metro Junior ‘A’ Hockey League has announced its awards winners for the 2019-2020 season and the New Tecumseth Civics will be bringing home plenty of hardware.

For only the second time in league history one team is responsible for 5 of the 9 voted upon award winners, the only other team to do this was the 2009-2010 South Muskoka Shield.

Civics Forward Riley Nadeau has been announced as the recipient of both the North Divisions Top Forward Award and the Most Sportsmanlike award (A combination that has not happened in league history), fellow Civics forward Vadim Tsyrkunov has been named the North Divisions Top Rookie player, Civics Coach Dennis Martindale has been named the North Divisions Coach of the Year and former Civics goaltender Artur Veiber (who was traded to the Pirates at the deadline) who made 17 of his appearances this season with New Tecumseth, has been named the North Divisions Top Goaltender.

Nadeau, the Espanola, Ontario native who was born in Jackson, Mississippi, authored the greatest single season in Civics history. With the first 100 point season in the team’s years, Nadeau set franchise records in Points (100), Assists (65) and became the Civics all-time scoring leader with a career total of 164 points in 82 games and a career average of 2 Points per game. The former top 10 NOJHL goal scorer also added 4 power play goals, 1 while shorthanded and 3 of his goals stood as the game winner. Nadeau returned to Captain the Civics this season after previously serving as captain and leading scorer during the 2017-2018 season.

Nadeau, 1998 born, was proud and humble about being named the winner of both awards, “I am very honored to have received awards for most sportsmanlike player and best forward.  These awards recognize my success as an individual, however I could not have succeeded without the support of Coach Dennis, my teammates and my billet homes. Dennis has always believed in my skills and trusted me in critical game situations. He has been a great mentor to me and I am very thankful for that. I have had great chemistry with my line mates which makes the game I love even more enjoyable to play.  I have been fortunate to have had billet families who welcomed me into their homes and made me feel like one of their own, which allowed me to focus on my play and the success of the team. I’m grateful to have played my last junior year with the Civics, it’s been an amazing end to my junior hockey career.”

In the race for the divisions’ top forward Nadeau beat out MVP Marc-Antoine Turcotte and Pirates 100 point scorer Vincent Ethier on his way to claiming the award.

Martindale was very proud of the work Nadeau had put in in the 3 seasons they were together, “Nads is a great kid coming from a great family, I‘ve known him for a while now and that’s one of the reasons we made him our captain. His skills on the ice speak for themselves, he plays hard every night and this season was not an easy one and he remained positive and a great leader throughout, he deserves every recognition he gets. Getting 100 points is not easy to do in any league, it takes a lot of skill, I believe Nads is gonna move on to the next level and will be very successful whether it‘s on the ice or off. I wish him all the best, he was a great junior player to coach.”

As mentioned previous Nadeau was not even close to the only Civic to receive awards, the league’s Top Rookie award will also reside in New Tecumseth thanks to the outstanding season of Vadim Tsyrkunov.

Tsyrkunov, the 2002 born Krasnodar, Russia native finished second amongst all U18 players in the league in scoring with 35 Points (20G, 15A) in 36 games this season including tying for the lead in goals. He finished fourth in scoring on a loaded Civics offense team that had the sixth highest goal total in the league this season. Tsyrkunov has also converted 4 times on the power play, once while shorthanded and 3 of his goals have stood as the game winner in his first season of junior hockey.

On Tsyrkunov Martindale was happily surprised at his impact in his first season, “Tyrks came to us as a 16 year old so we didn‘t know what to expect, what we got is one of the most individual skilled players in the division. He still has work to do to understand the North American game, but he‘s still very young, you can tell he loves the game and has a bright future.”

This summer Tsyrkunov was skating with the Cleveland Barons U18 team in the US before joining the Civics at the beginning of the season. He played his minor hockey in the Kapitan Stupino system playing U16, U17 and U18 with the program scoring 30 points in 36 games across 3 seasons.

Tsyrkunov is one of 60 Russian born players in the league this season and was thirteenth in scoring amongst all of them this season. He edged out Knights forward Felix Lecomte and Rattlers forward Nikita Sakhno in the award voting.

In his third season as Head Coach of the Civics, and after finishing as the runner-up for the award last season, Dennis Martindale has won the North Division Coach of the Year award.

Martindale, in his fourth year coaching junior hockey in Canada, joined the Civics in 2017-2018 following a lengthy professional career where he played 14 years in Germany, France and Quebec.

Martindale led the Civics to a 25-15-2 record which was a 1 point improvement over last season’s record, the most impressive stretch of this record being a 13-4 start to the season. Martindale’s coaching, which was done primarily solo on the bench, was a huge reason for the improvement of not only his team but also his players. The Leading scorer on the Civics Riley Nadeau scored the first 100 point season in franchise history an improvement of 36 points from his first season with Martindale and the Civics.

Martindale was quick to give credit to his players and coaching staff when asked about winning the award, “It’s nice to win Coach of the Year, but the players deserve the credit, they‘re the ones that actually go on the ice and do the work, all I do is try and guide them the best I can in practice and video. I really enjoy working with JR, Nikita and Igor, it‘s a fun staff and they deserve credit as well, our hard work together is what makes the program a successful one.”

The final award has been credited to both the Civics and the Ville-Marie Pirates as Artur Veiber was named the North Divisions Top goaltender. Dating back to the days of the pre-branded Alliston Coyotes the franchise is now responsible for 4 of the last 8 awards in this category as New Tecumseth has solidified its status as an “elite goalie factory”.

Veiber who played in 17 of his 23 games this season as a member of the Civics, was outstanding in all facets of the game putting together a stat line that was elite in every category. He finished T-5th in the league in Wins with 14 (T-3rd in the division), 7th in the league in Saves with 817 (3rd in the division), 7th in the league in Save Percentage with .909% (3rdin the Division), and 13th in the league in GAA with 3.79 (5th in the Division).

Civics Assistant GM Jordan Richardson touched on what made Veiber an elite goaltender, “We were lucky to have had Artur here for the past season and a half including most of his award winning season this year. We were able to see firsthand his ability to stay calm and collected during even the tightest of games and his very technical play style that allowed him to be in the right postion to make many seemingly difficult saves, he deserves to be recognized as one of the top goalies in the league and it was a pleasure working with him.”

Veiber followed an impressive debut season with the Civics with a season equally as impressive and has been rewarded for his hard work. Veiber, now with the Pirates, enters the Russell Cup playoffs on the second seeded team in the North Division.

We would like to wish congratulations to Riley, Vadim, Dennis and Artur as they have all seen their hard work pay off with these recognitions from around the league. The team and community has been proud to have you, thank you from all of Civic Nation.