A UConn senior is among five college hockey players who were named finalists for the Hockey Humanitarian Award, presented yearly to college hockey’s “finest citizen.”
Ryan Tattle, the Huskies’ captain and forward from British Columbia, was named a finalist on Tuesday.
Tattle founded the Score for Cancer initiative, which has helped raise more than $178,000 for the Canadian Cancer Society. He started the initiative after his mother, Joanne, was diagnosed with cancer in 2021. She lost her battle with the disease in 2023.
Tattle and his father also co-founded another charity, Lina’s Dream, when he was a youngster in 2011. Tattle has been involved with the organization since its inception, helping to raise more than $775,000 for breast cancer research.
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The award celebrates a “student-athlete who makes significant contributions not only to his or her team but also to the community-at-large through leadership in volunteerism,” according to a press release.
“I saw the battle first-hand, I saw my mom fight cancer for three years,” Tattle told The Courant in January, “Seeing that, it’s pretty motivating, because you don’t want other people to go through what you and your family went through; it’s such a terrible thing and affects so many people.”
The other finalists for the award include women’s hockey players Kara Goulding (Boston College), Grace Sadura (Minnesota-Duluth), Meg Simon (Middlebury College, Mich.), and men’s player Jayden Sison of Princeton.
The Hockey Humanitarian Foundation will make donations to the charity that is most important to each of the five finalists. The donations are made possible with the support of the award’s partners and donors, the foundation said.