University of Denver hockey players Gabe Levin and Danton Heinen received prestigious awards on Wednesday during Frozen Four Media Day in Tampa, Fla. Denver battles the North Dakota Fighting Hawks at Amalie Arena in Tampa at 6:30 p.m. MDT on Thursday, April 7.
Levin won the Elite 90 Award, given to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative GPA participating at the finals site for each of the NCAA’s 90 championships, while Heinen won the inaugural ASN Player of the Year trophy in recognition of his outstanding 2015–16 campaign.
Levin, who also was named the 2016 NCHC Scholar-Athlete of the Year, has registered a 3.961 GPA during his senior season as a finance major. Levin also is the recipient of the conference’s inaugural post-graduate scholarship; he plans to enter law school in the fall after graduating from DU’s Daniels College of Business in June.
“Gabe is the embodiment of what a student-athlete should be,” says DU head coach Jim Montgomery. “He excels at everything he does, and it’s been a privilege to coach him these last three years. He’s a great ambassador not just for Denver hockey, but for college hockey as a whole.”
In addition to his NCHC academic honors, Levin is the recipient of DU’s Chancellor Scholarship, which is the highest merit-based academic award offered by DU. He is also a three-time Denver Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year for having the top GPA in his class among male student-athletes; was named to the Capital One Academic All-District Team in 2013–14; and has earned the Most Sportsmanlike Award and the Most Improved Player Award from his teammates during his Denver career.
“Graduate school is a huge opportunity for me to pursue a passion that I developed while studying at the University of Denver,” says Levin, who has been accepted to Harvard Law. “At Denver, I have taken a variety of legal studies courses, which made me realize I wanted to pursue a career in law. After making this decision, I knew that law school was the only way for me to achieve this goal. For the past year, the time I have not spent on school and hockey has been dedicated to studying for the LSAT and working on my applications. I am very excited about the career opportunities that I will encounter in graduate school.”
Heinen, who currently leads the Pioneers in scoring, was named the 2016 NCHC Forward of the Year in March. Since Feb. 1, the Boston Bruins prospect leads all of college hockey in points-per-game.
The Denver Pioneers are competing in the Frozen Four for the first time since 2005 — the year they captured the program’s seventh national title and the second of back-to-back championships.