Image credit: contributed

By Earl Seitz

Garand scholastic player of the year

Blazers Garand WHL scholastic player of the year

May 13, 2020 | 6:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — The Blazers were the cream of the crop in the B.C. Division this season —- and pretty good in the classroom too.

Mixing the high demands of being an elite junior hockey talent with practice, travel, games and community work, with excellance in the classroom, doesn’t come easy.

In 42 games this season Garand was top three in the league in average, saves percentage, wins, and shutouts.

His numbers in the classroom, even more impressive —– in his core Grade 12 courses, Garand maintained a 96.5% academic average to correspone with his 92.1 saves percentage in hockey.

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For that the 17-year old Victoria native has been named the Western Hockey League scholastic player of the year.

“Dylan is a goalie —- so he’s unique in many, many ways.” says Blazers education consultant Vic Bifano. “When it comes to academics and hockey, he is a real student of the game in both areas.”

“My school work is something that I take pride in.” says Garand. “I work really hard during the year, so to be recognized is a great feeling. It’s definately challenging with the tough schedule that we have during the year. My teachers did a great job of understanding that — helping me when I needed it. Something that’s important is the time management, so when you have time you have to make sure you do your school work and stay of top of it, which really helps a lot. Yah, it’s tough with how busy we are and how hockey focused most of us are.”

Dylan Garand will graduate with honours from Grade 12 this spring.

Garand named scholastic player of the year is a reflection of a team award —— earlier this week the Blazers were named the league’s scholastic team of the year.

Eight players completed 49 overall courses with an average 93.6% .

In January, three graduated from high school early.

Nine other players were either enrolled in courses at TRU or online university courses.

“I don’t think people realize they juggle a lot.” says Vic Bifano. “Aside from the hockey, which is everyday, most of those guys go to school everyday. At times they miss literally 35 to 40% of their actual school time. They do study in the hotel room. They study when they get back home off road trips. It’s really a management of time, a management of resources — and all of these kids do community service work —- so they’re pretty involved.”