Close to perfection!
How do you follow up a perfect season? That's probably the question Rob Hennigar was asking himself entering the 2007-08 hockey campaign.
To say the previous year had been pretty good for the native of St. Catharines, Ont., who grew up in Jordan, Ont., would be an understatement. A former Windsor Spitfire all-star in the OHL, Hennigar guided UNB to the second University Cup title in school history with a 3-2 overtime win over championship host Moncton in an all-New Brunswick CIS final played in front of a capacity crowd of over 6,000. Individually, he was named a second-team all-Canadian after finishing second in AUS scoring and sixth in the nation with 42 points in 25 games.
And of course there was that once-in-a-lifetime experience in Italy in January. Hennigar was among 22 players from the Atlantic conference selected to represent Canada at the 2007 Winter Universiade in Turin, which had been the site of the Olympic Games a year earlier. There, the five-foot-11, 200-pound forward tied for the team lead with nine points in six outings, including a pair of goals in a 3-1 gold-medal win over who else, archrival Russia, as the Canadians were crowned world university champions for the third time in history, the first since 1991.
So how do you follow up a perfect season? "Rob culminated his excellent four-year career here at UNB by having his best campaign and leading our team to our best regular season ever," Varsity Reds head coach Gardiner MacDougall simply said.
No, the V-Reds didn't repeat as University Cup champions. They fell just short, losing 3-2 to Alberta in the title match. But they enjoyed the best conference schedule in AUS history, setting records with 26 wins and 53 points - out of a possible 56 - in 28 duels, before going 5-for-5 in the playoffs to claim their first AUS banner in five years.
Hennigar became the second V-Red to receive the Senator Joseph A. Sullivan Trophy as CIS MVP after he led the nation with 58 points, the best tally in CIS hockey since current Tamba Bay Lightning Mathieu Darche racked up 62 points for McGill in 1999-2000. He also became the all-time career points leader in 100 years of hockey at UNB.
Hennigar’s Accomplishments: |
