Snikeris Named Sarah Devens Award Winner

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Yale senior goaltender Jackee Snikeris has been named the winner of the 2011 Sarah Devens Award. Given as a joint award between ECAC Hockey and Hockey East, the Sarah Devens Award is presented annually to a player who "demonstrates leadership and commitment both on and off the ice."

Each conference submitted a league nominee for consideration. The winner receives a post-graduate scholarship of $10,000.  

Snikeris is the first Bulldogs’ student-athlete to receive the Sarah Devens Award. She has been a model leader both on and off the ice having a major impact on the program’s success in New Haven.

Snikeris is a History of Medicine (Pre-Med) major who has a 3.59 cumulative GPA and will receive her fourth ECAC Hockey All-Academic Team selection this season. She plans on attending medical school in the near future.

Off the ice, Snikeris has excelled in the classroom while taking a pre-med course load. She has also graduated from the Yale Athletics Department's Kiphuth Leadership Academy, a program designed to develop Yale student-athletes to be world-class leaders in athletics, academics and life.

In addition to working at a nearby hospital and having some of her work there published in the Journal of Surgical Radiology, she has also volunteered at a local hospice for the past two years and taught skating to local middle schoolers.

“Being named the Sarah Devens Award Winner is truly an honor, especially after reading more about who Sarah Devens was as a person. She seemed like a truly remarkable student-athlete and I am very humbled to be recognized in her honor. I will be forever grateful for the post-graduate scholarship and it will undoubtedly help me when I go to medical school,” remarked Snikeris.

She has been a part of team-wide initiatives to raise awareness of the need for bone marrow donors and umbilical cord blood donors to help save the lives of patients in need, inspired by her teammate Mandi Schwartz’s recent battle with cancer. She has taken part in Yale’s Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society and helped teach sports skills to local children. She has also been a part of a program that pairs local brain tumor patients with Yale sports teams. Snikeris and her teammates were also part of the start of the “Bulldog Buddies” program this past fall. The Yale women’s team “adopted” a local girl who recently had surgery to remove a brain tumor.

On the ice, Snikeris re-wrote the Yale record book many times over. A Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award nominee this season, Snikeris holds the school's career records for save percentage (.931), goals-against average (2.12) and shutouts (16). She also holds the single-season Yale records for save percentage (.941, 2010-11) and goals-against average (1.67, 2008-09) and is tied for the shutout record (five, 2008-09). She was recently named ECAC Hockey’s Goaltender of the Year and Student-Athlete of the Year, earned first team All-League honors, and team MVP honors twice.

Past recipients of the award include:  1997 -- Kathryn Waldo (F), Northeastern; 1998 -- Sarah Hood (F), Dartmouth; 1999 -- Jamie Totten (D), Northeastern; 2000 -- Carrie Jokiel (F), New Hampshire; 2001 -- Christina Sorbara (F), Brown; 2002 -- Dianna Bell (F), Cornell; 2003 -- Rachel Barrie (G), St. Lawrence; 2004 -- Lindsay Charlebois (F), St. Lawrence; 2005 -- Nicole Corriero (F), Harvard; 2006 -- Karen Thatcher (F), Providence; 2007 -- Lindsay Williams (F), Clarkson; 2008 -- Lizzie Keady (F), Princeton; 2009 -- Marianna Locke (F), St. Lawrence; 2010 -- Laura Gersten (F), Rensselaer.

The other finalist for the award was Hockey East’s Holly Lorms from Boston University.

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