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• RBK All-America Team

DETROIT -- Bemidji State University men’s ice hockey junior forward Matt Read (Ilderton, Ontario) has been named Second Team RBK All-America.  The announcement came from the American Hockey Coaches’ Association (AHCA) on Friday as a part of the 2010 NCAA Frozen Four festivities in Detroit, Mich. Read becomes the first BSU Division I-era player to earn AHCA postseason recognition.

The RBK All-America honor is another in a long list of accolades already garnered by Read this year. The College Hockey America (CHA) Pre-Season Player of the Year and Preseason All-CHA pick, was a First-Team All-CHA selection and became the second player in BSU history to be named CHA Player of the Year.  A three-time CHA Offensive Player of the Week recipient, Read also garnered INCH All-CHA and Conference Player of the Year accolades and Hockey Commissioner’s Association (HCA) National Player of the Month Honorable Mention recognition in October.

Read becomes the 56th player in Bemidji State history to garner all-America accolades, and those 56 players have now won a total of 82 all-America awards led by Jim McElmury (1968-71) and Mark Eagles (1973-76) who each corralled four all-America honors while at BSU. Read becomes Bemidji State’s first all-America pick since Andrew Murray (2001-05) garnered Third-Team All-USCHO.com laurels at the conclusion of the 2005 campaign.

Read, a two-time First Team All-CHA selection, paced the Beavers in scoring for the third consecutive season racking up 19-22=41 points, to sit alone atop the Beavers’ Division I-era single-season scoring list.  In addition to finishing second on the team in goals (19), which included a team-leading four game-winners, and assists (22), his 2-11=13 points on the power-play this season trailed only teammate and fellow First Team All-CHA selection Brad Hunt (So., Ridge Meadows, British Columbia). With at least 40 points in each of the last two seasons, Read became the first BSU player since Bernie Adlys (1993-96) to post back-to-back 40-point campaigns. His scoring efforts mark the first time in BSU’s Division I history that a sophomore or junior has broken the 40-point plateau. He eclipsed the 100-point mark for his career in just his 102nd game in the green and white, becoming the second-fastest BSU Division I-era player to crack 100 career points.

In 2009-10, Read scored in 24 of the Beavers’ 37 outings. He posted a career-best 2-2=4 points in the second game of the season to account for the first of his team-leading 13 multi-point efforts.  Read assembled two scoring streaks of at least five consecutive games matching a career-best six games from Feb. 19 to Mar. 6 during which he scored a goal in four straight.  

In league play, the junior registered 12 goals to lead all CHA scorers and led a BSU offensive attack that paced the conference averaging 3.94 goals per game.  He also capped the season seated second in points (12-11=23), game-winning goals (3), and short-handed goals (1), while he completed the regular-season third on the conference assists scoring list (11).

Read has seen time in each of BSU’s games since stepping on campus in the fall of 2007.  Playing 110 consecutive contests, he has accumulated 43-65=108 points.  He finished his junior campaign fourth on BSU’s Division I-era scoring list (108), is third in assist scoring (95), tied for third in game-winning goals (7) and is seated seventh on the goals scoring list (43).   
Read’s 108 career points place him in a tie for 38th all-time at BSU; he is the just the fourth player at BSU to play his entire career at the  Division I level and join the school’s Top 50 all-time point scorers.

Since joining the Beaver Hockey program, the native of Ilderton, Ontario has led BSU to three consecutive CHA Regular Season titles, a CHA Tournament championship (2008), back-to-back berths into the NCAA Tournament (2008, 2009) and the program’s first appearance in the Frozen Four (2009).  

The AHCA/Reebok All-American Ice Hockey Teams are sponsored by Reebok, an international leader in hockey equipment, and chosen by members of the American Hockey Coaches Association.

Read and the Beavers, who finished 23-10-4 overall and 14-3-1 in CHA play to garner their fifth conference regular-season crown in the last seven years, wrapped up the 2009-10 campaign with a loss to University of Michigan in the Midwest Regional semifinal contest, marking its fourth trip to the NCAA Division I Tournament since 2005.   

The 2010-11 season will be a landmark year for Bemidji State.  In addition to the program finding a new conference home in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA), arguably the premier collegiate hockey league in the land, the Beavers also pack their bags for a new physical home, moving from the John S. Glas Fieldhouse, that has served as the hockey home of the Beavers since 1967, to the state-of-the-art, $65 million Bemidji Regional Events Center.  BSU is set to break the seal on the new venue Oct. 15-16 when it hosts WCHA-foe University of North Dakota.  The two-game set is slated for a 7:37 p.m. opening face off, while the series finale will begin at 7:07 p.m.

--bsu--