The WHL announced their awards for the 2016/2017 season last week. The winner of the Bill Hunter Memorial Trophy (D-man of the year) was awarded to Ochapowace First Nation’s Ethan Bear of the Seattle Thunderbirds.
Bear played one season of midget AAA in Yorkton. The team was then named the Yorkton Harvest. After that one season, he headed to Seattle for his WHL career and has been there ever since.
The Thunderbird assistant captain helped lead the team on its offensive attack this season. He was the third in team scoring with a career-high 70 points from 28 goals and 42 assists in 67 games played.
The Thunderbirds are in an ongoing series with the Regina Pats for the WHL championship title. So far in this year’s playoff run, Bear has scored 6 goals and 13 assists giving him 19 points in just 13 games played.
Bear was also named the WHL player of the week this week. This recognition is credited to his three points (1G-2A) in the first two games of the Thunderbirds’ series against the Pats.
The 5-foot-11, 205-pound player sits in second place in WHL playoff scoring among all defencemen.
A fifth-round, 124th overall pick of the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers at the 2015 NHL Draft, the d-man has racked up 192 points (66G-126A) in 264 career WHL regular season games with the Thunderbirds.
In addition, Bear has accumulated 48 points (17G-31A) in 46 career WHL post-season contests.
Alongside Bear on the Thunderbirds are Yorkton’s Turner Ottenbreit and Zack Andrusiak. Ottenbreit has played 16 playoffgames and has 8 points (2G-6A). Adrusiak has played 14 playoff games and has 3 points (1G-2A).
