Winning the top award in U.S. women's college hockey felt bittersweet for Vicki Bendus.
The 20-year-old from Wasaga Beach, Ont., was named the 2010 recipient of the Patty Kazmaier Award, which goes to the best female NCAA hockey player, on Saturday in Minneapolis.
Bendus went from agony to glory in less than a day. Her Mercyhurst Lakers were upset 3-2 in overtime by Cornell Big Red in the Frozen Four semifinal Friday. Cornell and Minnesota-Duluth will play for the championship Sunday.
"I think I still kind of in shock right now," Bendus said Saturday from Minneapolis shortly after accepting the trophy. "The last 24 hours has been a pretty big emotional roller-coaster for me and my team.
"The loss yesterday is tough to swallow. Winning this award today -- I'm trying to think of the words -- is a positive for me to pull out of this season. It's a team award. It shows the season was a success even though we didn't accomplish all our goals."
Bendus, who has played on Canada's under-22 women's team the last two years, is the first player from Mercyhurst to win the Kazmaier Award. Bendus had her teammates with her, as well as parents Pat and Gary, brother Gord and sister Allison, at Saturday's ceremony.
"It's on the same level as the Heisman Trophy for NCAA football or the Hobey Baker Award for NCAA men's hockey," Bendus explained. "It's what all girls playing college hockey strive to achieve and strive to win.
"It puts our school in the spotlight on a national level."
Kelly Paton of Woodstock, Ont., a senior forward at New Hampshire, and Minnesota goaltender Noora Raty of Finland were the other two finalists for the award.
Bendus, a junior at the Erie, Pa., school, tied for the NCAA lead in points (65) with 28 goals and 37 assists. The five-foot-one, 117-pound forward also scored five short-handed goals and five game-winning goals en route to winning the College Hockey America Player of the Year award.
"Vicki is a wonderful person and a tremendous leader, who plays with great emotion each and every game," Mercyhurst coach Michael Sisti said in a statement. "She does so many things well and had the best season of her career."
The Patty Kazmaier Award is named after the former Princeton defenceman who died of a blood disease in 1990. She was just 28. The award winner is chosen by a 13-member selection committee that includes coaches, media and a representative of USA Hockey.
Previous Canadian winners include Winnipeg's Jennifer Botterill (Harvard, 2001, 2003), Sara Bauer of St. Catharines, Ont., (Wisconsin, 2006) and Sarah Vaillancourt of Sherbrooke, Que., (Harvard, 2008). Botterill is the only player to have won the award twice in its 13-year history.
Wisconsin goaltender Jessie Vetter won the Kazmaier last year, beating out finalists Vaillancourt and Meghan Agosta.
Mercyhurst was ranked No. 1 in the NCAA for most of the season, despite the absence of Agosta, a finalist for the Kazmaier three straight years from 2007 to 2009. Agosta spent this winter with Canada's Olympic team and led the Olympic tournament in goals with a record nine.
Bendus, who was Mercyhurst's captain in Agosta's absence, and Agosta will both play out their senior year in 2010-11, which bodes well for the team next season.
But Bendus and her Laker teammates -- 13 of whom are Canadian -- wanted to win Mercyhurst's first NCAA championship this year. They were crushed following their overtime defeat.
"It was a tough one," Bendus said. "They played a great game.
"It was a hard-fought game right to the end. They deserved to win yesterday."
Bendus, a biology major with aspirations of going to medical school, will have to settle for making Mercyhurst history in one, not two, categories this season.
"It's definitely been one of the best of my career individually, but right now there's still kind of a sour feeling in my stomach for the way that it ended," she said.
