Perunovich Receives High Praise from UMD’s Former Hobey Baker Winners

Both Bill Watson and Jack Connolly say that the fact that Perunovich is a local player makes this honor that much more special to the program.

DULUTH, Minn. – This past weekend, UMD’s Scott Perunovich became the sixth Bulldog ever to win the Hobey Baker Award. We spoke with two of the other five winners, Bill Watson and Jack Connolly, who say that the Hibbing native has left a strong legacy at UMD.

“There is nothing that he hasn’t accomplished as an individual player. But more importantly, he did it in a team setting. You look at the record of the team he played on for the three years here, each and every year, we were positioned to have an opportunity to win a national championship,” said Watson.

“In my opinion, maybe of the best Bulldogs ever and one of the top defenseman to ever play in the program. I don’t think there’s anyone that can match that resume as far as back-to-back national championships and cap it off with the Hobey Baker. He doesn’t know anything else but winning, which is pretty incredible. I don’t think there’s too many college hockey players that can go into their career, look back and say ‘Well, I didn’t really lose anything’,” Connolly said.

Both Watson and Connolly agreed that the fact that Perunovich is a local player makes this honor that much more special to the program.

“It definitely meant a lot for me obviously being from Duluth and in northern Minnesota and I’m sure he probably feels the same. Having his family and friends around him through his college career and then capping it off with winning the Hobey like this, I can imagine it’s probably pretty special for him,” said Connolly.

“It speaks volumes about the history of our program in the last 40 years or so. You think about our last two Hobey Baker Award winners basically coming from 218 area codes. I think it just echoes the value of our program and to keep those kids locally that want to come here and play at UMD,” Watson said.