June 25, 2008

Fairfield, CT - Senior Nick Kary (Wetaskiwin, AB) was named to the Atlantic Hockey Academic All-Star team for the fourth straight year, leading a group of 12 players from the Sacred Heart men's ice hockey team who were named to the Atlantic Hockey All-Academic team, announced Wednesday by the league office.

Kary was the AHA's Scholar Athlete of the Year in 2005 and 2007 and was a four time Academic All-Star selection. The Academic All-Star squad is made up of the student-athletes with the highest GPA's at their respective positions.

In addition to Kary, senior Alexandre Parent (Boisbriand, QC) was named to the team for a fourth straight year and junior Stefan Drew (Oakbank, MB) earned his third consecutive All-Academic nod. Junior Matt Richards (Ridgefield, CT) and sophomore Corey Laurysen (Ottawa, ON) earned honors for the second time. Being named to the squad for the first time were junior Dave Grimson (Mozart, SK), sophomores Gregg Rodriguez (Sunnyvale, CA) and Chris Wagner (Stratford, CT) and freshmen Dave Berube (Quebec City, QC), Olivier St. Onge (Wickham, QC), Reade Wolansky (St Albert, AB) and Adam DeJong (Kitchener, ON).

This season a pair of student-athletes achieved perfection in the classroom. Seniors Mike Field (American International) and Brent Franklin (Holy Cross) posted a perfect 4.0 in both the fall and spring semesters to garner the Top Scholar Athlete Award for the 2007-08 season. Field was an entrepreneurship major at AIC, while Franklin was a chemistry major at Holy Cross. Both graduated in the spring.

In all 124 student-athletes from the league's 10 schools were named to the All-Academic team. To qualify for the Atlantic Hockey All-Academic Team an individual must post a 3.0 grade point average or higher in all of the academic periods during which his team was actively competing. Atlantic Hockey's Top Scholar Athlete is an award given annually to the player or players who achieves the highest grade point average over the course of the academic semesters of competition.