Abood earns Derek Hines Award
4/6/2018 12:00:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. - Air Force senior defenseman Dylan Abood has been named the recipient of the 2018 Derek Hines Unsung Hero Award, which was announced tonight by the Hockey Commissioners Association (HCA) at the Frozen Four in St. Paul. He is the second Falcon to win the award, joining Mike Phillipich in 2009.
The award was established by the HCA in honor of former Army player Derek Hines, who was a "consummate team player and team builder." Hines played at Army from 1999-2003 and was a four-year latter-winner as well as a co-captain his senior season. He was killed in the line of duty on Sept. 1, 2005 in Afghanistan.
Abood carries a 3.85 overall grade point average while majoring in electrical engineering. The Centennial, Colo., native has been on the Dean's List every semester. He is a two-time, first-team CoSIDA Academic All-District selection and has been named academic all-conference three times. This past summer, he was selected for the Cadet Summer Research Program with MIT Lincoln Laboratory under Group 73 (Energy Systems), building, developing and testing a portable solar power system to assist with disaster relief operations.
A flight commander in his squadron, he has volunteered numerous hours in the community, including Break Time, assisting families that have special needs children, the Marion House Soup Kitchen, assisting with the Colorado Springs homeless population and local fire mitigation units.
On the ice, Abood is a two-time team captain. He has played in 122 career games and recorded 27 career points (4-23-27). Earlier this season, he scored the game-winner against Arizona State, the second game-winner of his career. Abood is a +35 for his career and, this season, ranked fourth in the conference in blocked shots with 66.
The Hockey Commissioners Association coordinates the honor. Each of the six hockey conferences nominates a player to a national ballot. From there, sports information directors from each conference vote on a winner, "who displays exemplary sportsmanship, is supremely competitive, intelligent and extraordinarily conditioned with an unmatched work ethic. The contributions of this individual, on and off the ice, cannot be measured by statistics alone."
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