Hawkesbury Hawks Head Coach Rick Dorval has been named as one of six finalists for the Darcy Haugan/Mark Cross Memorial Award, emblematic of Canadian Junior Hockey League (CJHL) Coach of the Year for the 2021-22 campaign.
The names of the six finalists were announced on Monday by the CJHL, in conjunction with the National Hockey League Coaches’ Association.
This honour, presented annually by the CJHL and NHLCA, is in memory of Humboldt Broncos (SJHL) head coach Darcy Haugan and assistant Mark Cross, who were among those who sadly lost their lives following the tragic events of April 6, 2018.
Each of the finalists were determined through a voting process completed by the CJHL’s nine-member leagues, for their respective contributions over the course of the regular season.
Dorval, 38, has been with the Hawks since 2013-14 when he came in as an assistant coach after moving on from his head coach position with the Ottawa Junior A Senators with which he last won the CCHL Coach of the Year Award during the 2012-13 season. He would become the Hawks’ head coach beginning in 2015-16 and then added the general manager tag beginning in 2019-20.
This season, Dorval helped lead Hawkesbury to an impressive 36-12-3-2 record on the ice, good enough for second-best among all 12 CCHL teams. Under Dorval, the Hawks boasted a league-leading PP% at 21.4% and a league-best PK% at 88.5%. The Hawks also sat second overall in goals scored with 200 and boasted the second-best goals-for/goals-against differential at plus-77.
