2011-12 #ECACHockey Twitter Awards

It's the awards you've all been waiting for... the #ECACHockey Twitter Awards:

Tweeter of the Year

Mark Armstrong (SLU)

Pretty easy one here. Armstrong was the league's top tweeter with 38 Tweets of the Week, which accounted for 38% of SLU's TOTW. He provided us with great chirps, advice, and other great tidbits. Here are some of the highlights:

August 31 - Worst part of taking your roster pic is the fellas heckling from the hallway Best part, you can't look any worse than @TT_status @C_Mart10

September 7 - @C_Mart10 like I said before, C's get degrees but Marsh wants the 4.0

November 10 - Clarkson mus hate road trips. Seeing the hot girls all the other schools have then busing back to their engineers #2ontheroadisa10athome

November 12 - Qpac: great tunes, great rink, great cheerleaders and Brutal atmosphere. #dresslikeaseatnight

March 4 - I guess since that I'm not longer a collegiate athlete I can now accept all forms of gifts.... I prefer cash.

Thank you King Tweeter for bring your "A" game for your senior year. Next year's winner will have big shoes to fill. Also, sorry, but I wasn't able to get the prize you wanted. Who would've thought you couldn't buy a Quinnipiac cheerleader?

Rookie of the Year

Luke Curadi (RPI)

Not only was the biggest player in the league imposing on the ice, he was the same in the #ECACHockey Twitter world this season. He supplied us with some of the best variety of great tweets including chirping teammates, rivals, and even himself. He finished second in the league with 21 TOTW, and at one point it looked like he could challenge Mark Armstrong for the title. He's my early favorite to become #ECACHockey's King Tweeter next season. Here are some of his best tweets:

October 15 - tough weekend for #theboys will make us that much stronger. its about the process not the result

October 19 - Give @jakelaliberte15, the kid who started playing jr hockey during vietnam and committed to RPI before schroeder was born, a get well tweet

November 7 - I wonder if the girls were better at RPI when Oates or Juneau were here. Nevermind, females dressed weird in the 80s.
... I bet the girls they got were top shelf. Us on the other hand, #topramen

November 10 - @jakelaliberte15 is definitly the frenchest kid in the #ecac, he speaks 3 languages: crappy english, quebecois, and his own mix of the 2

December 9 - For me, getting retweeted is like scoring a goal in practice, doesn't happen often, but still is a highlight of the day. #handslikefeetprobz

March 4 - Also a shout out to the RPI pep band. Heard they took some abuse from clarkson but they stayed strong for us. Ill stand by those kids anyday

March 24 - Everyone is rooting for union to win it all, but personally I'm rooting against them. I would never root for my rival. I hate those guys.

Unsung Tweeter of the Year

Troy Grosenick (Union)

Grosenick has received a lot of attention and accolades lately, but no one has really talked about how lethal of a tweeter he is. His eight TOTW honors ranked eighth in the league (the most for third place Union and the most of any goalie in the league), which is pretty good, but he supplied us with some of the best chirps this season (especially towards classmate Kevin Sullivan):

September 27 - @k1nkaid was gonna draft you in Fantasy....decided Trevor Kidd coming out of retirement gave me a better shot to win

October 24 - @DillPikle31 Don't call us #tenders - it makes me feel like a cannibal

October 24 - @KevinSullivan27 @Hatch15M Who wins in a fight, a hurricane or coach bennett? Trick question the hurricane is hurricane bennett#dasuperfans

October 30 - @JJooris19 Like the Cowboys using Dez Bryant to imitate Mike Vick, AIC used their #waterboy to prepare for @KevinSullivan27

November 6 - @ECACHockeyBlog hats off to the #SLU boys, don't know how they tweet so much, I had no signal north of the adirondacks#findingaway

January 5 - Get off the front page of uscho @KevinSullivan27 that prep school style is bad for our rep #combovers #softbackhandtoeys

Team Twitter Award

St. Lawrence "Tweeting" Saints

Another obvious pick here. They led the league with 99 Tweets of the Week, which was 39 more than second place Brown, and twice more than 10 of the teams. Of the 28 Twitter-Athletes on their roster, 13 of them received TOTW honors. While Armstrong received all the publicity, guys like Gunnar Hughes, Greg Carey, Chris Martin, Patrick Raley, and Matt Weninger should also be commended. These guys had 49 Tweets of the Week between the five of them, which is why I predict SLU to be on top again next season. Heck, they would've come in third this year if they were their own team.

Twitter Target of the Year

Tyson Fulton (Union)

This award could have gone to a number of guys, but I think this guy is most worthy. Not only did he get chirped by his roommate and fellow Minnesota boy Sam Coatta, but he also received a nice chirp from SLU's Gunnar Hughes... on his birthday. Here are some of the chirps:

September 19 - @ECACHockeyBlog I gave @tysonfulton a set of hands for his birthday today #silkymittens

October 31 - @tysonfultonlookinforawife

November 28 - Ehhh room is looking solid. @tysonfulton interior design major? Hardest part is getting into the room but after that your golden

January 3 - "does de-caff mean there's more or less caffeine, I always get confused." - @tysonfulton #ECACHockey at its finest

January 31 - He might not be able to read but he can definitely crush some note-cards #beautyroomy pic.twitter.com/miIVNVDc

February 19 - "excuse me sir you have broccoli on your forehead" never a dull moment with this character pic.twitter.com/0Uoa3w5E

But, the thing that really put Fulton over the top in my eyes was that he took it all in stride, and was always supporting his boys :

November 24 - Happy thanksgiving very thankful for family friends teammates and my beauty roomate @samcoatta

December 31 - New years resolution: no regrets always be a beauty

February 9 - Big exam for the boys today need to wear our work buckets and battle back after a tough one last time

Hashtag of the Year

#EsHasBrutalHair

This hashtag was the talk of #ECACHockey during late September thanks to SLU's George Hughes. All the boys from Canton would not stop chirping about how brutal Kyle Essery's hair was. While there were other good hashtags this season, none lasted longer and got as much play as this one.

Chirp of the Year

Mark Armstrong (SLU)

While this tweet took place very early in the Tweeting season, it was pure gold. Of course it was by the King himself, who found a way to chirp two teams in one tweet:

September 4 - Those Brown players should have been around last year when the Clarkson guys tried to swim across the river and had to get rescued

Background: Last spring, two Clarkson hockey players had to be rescued while swimming across a river [link], and late this past summer a group of Brown hockey players rescued some kids at the beach [link].

Well, that's all! Congrats to the award winners and the rest of the great #ECACHockey Tweeters on a great season. Let's make this bigger next year!