Maureen Murphy and Erin Ambrose Shine as PWHL Award Winners for Montreal

On Tuesday afternoon the PWHL hosted its inaugural awards ceremony highlighting seven different awards.

A day after hosting its second draft in league history the PWHL had its first-ever award show showcasing its best players and coach.

The first award handed out was the PWHL Hockey for All Award which was won by PWHL Montreal forward Maureen Murphy. The award is given to the player who has the greatest impact in their community and was voted on by league leadership and its staff. The winner can also decide which charity to donate to and Scotiabank will donate $ 10,000 to that charity.

“It’s nice to be recognized,” Maureen Murphy told me on a Zoom call Tuesday afternoon after the event. “We don’t do it for the recognition and we do it to make an impact and I am really proud and hopefully it inspires more people to be active in their communities.”

I was also able to ask Murphy about where she was able to find time to volunteer and she was kind enough to detail how her day went and what kind of volunteer work she was doing.

“Our practices usually finished around 1 or 2 pm so I went right from the rink to pick up my dog and we went to the hospital and my school schedule was twice a week at night and it wasn’t as bad as I expected and I was able to make it work and I am only taking two classes.”

She added, “It’s great and it’s a testament to all the great organizations in Montreal and the encouragement I got from my teammates and trying to get them involved.”

Murphy spent time with patients who suffer from Alzheimer’s and dementia playing games and bringing her dog as a support animal.

Grace Zumwinkle was named the Rookie of the Year beating out Emma Maltais and Alina Muller who were the other two nominees while Troy Ryan won the award for Coach of the Year beating Montreal’s head coach Kori Cheverie and Boston’s Courtney Kessel.

Natalie Spooner who is currently recovering from an injury won two awards winning Forward of the Year while also winning the Billie Jean MVP Award. She beat out Alex Carpenter from New York and Marie Phillip Poulin in both categories.

Kristen Campbell won Goaltender of the Year in her first full year as a pro, winning the award over the other two nominees Aerin Frankel from Boston and Corinne Schroder from New York.

Finally, Erin Ambrose won the award for Defender of the Year and was elated to win it after a long and taxing season with Montreal where she was the top defender on the team. Ambrose was nominated in the category with Ella Shelton from New York and Megan Keller from Boston.

“It’s an honor,” Ambrose said. “I honestly think individual awards are bittersweet and the biggest thing I wish I could have was the Walter Cup and to have my name alongside Ella Shelton and Megan Keller who had phenomenal years and it was a special year and I am thankful to be defender of the year.”