Stankievech wins Lowe's recognition

Senior forward Landis Stankievech was recently named winner of the 2008 Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award, adding to his impressive stable of individual awards. Stankievech has already won a Rhodes Scholarship, Princeton’s Pyne Prize and the ECAC Student-Athlete of the Year award.

The Lowe’s Senior CLASS — Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School — Award, “the nation’s premier tribute to college seniors,” according to its website, is presented annually to outstanding NCAA Division I senior student-athletes. It was originally handed out only to student-athletes in men’s and women’s basketball but was expanded last year to include soccer, lacrosse, baseball and hockey players. Stankievech beat out 19 other nominees from around the country to win the men’s hockey division.

“With awards like this, there are so many good candidates, and they probably all deserve to win in one way or another,” Stankievech said. “I was honored just to have been nominated and then selected a finalist for the award.”

Though candidates are selected and judged based on personal qualities, including excellence in the classroom, character and community, as well as on the ice, Stankievech gives a lot of credit to his ECAC champion teammates and coaches for drawing national attention to Princeton.

“Really, a lot of awards, including this one, are team awards,” Stankievech said. “There is little chance that I would have won this if the team hadn’t had the successful year it did, and if I hadn’t been surrounded by the coaching staff, the guys in the locker room and the general environment that surrounds Princeton hockey.”

As if his academic accolades weren’t enough, Stankievech also had the best season of his career for the Tigers, scoring seven goals — including the game-winner in the ECAC championship game against Harvard — and adding six assists for 13 total points, all career highs despite his missing the first few games of the season. He was also as reliable as ever on the defensive side of the puck, killing penalties and neutralizing opponents’ top scorers all season long.

“I’ve been fortunate this year. I’ve had a few nice personal achievements, but more importantly, the team played great this year,” Stankievech said. “I was lucky. I was on the right team at the right time.”

The Tigers went 21-14-0 overall with a 14-8-0 ECAC record this year, en route to a second-place regular-season finish and, ultimately, the program’s first ECAC championship since 1998. Princeton also set program records for most overall wins in a season, most league wins in a season and highest regular-season finish in the standings.

“When you do well as a team, people start to think you might be doing something right, and so sometimes awards like this come your way,” Stankievech said.