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Timbermen’s Ryan Lee WLA Rookie of the Year

Aug 29, 2016 | 10:15 AM

NANAIMO — For the second time in five seasons, a Nanaimo Timbermen player has been named the WLA’s Rookie of the Year.

Ontario native Ryan Lee had 25 goals and 25 assists in 15 games with Nanaimo this season.

Lee also finished as the WLA’s top rookie scorer and was 10th overall in league scoring.

Timbermen President Chris Bowman hoped the league would recognize Lee’s fantastic season. 

“I thought he had an outside shot at it,” said Bowman. “You never know there’s a lot of really good rookies this year. He really did in that short amount of games he played, he only played 15, he put up a lot of points and alot of key points.” 

Bowman has high hopes for Ryan Lee heading into year two next May.

“He’ll put up more points than he did this year for sure. He must have hit 15 posts this year too, so if half of those bounce in, he could be a 30 to 40 goal scorer next year.”

Lee played his Junior A career in Ontario and had 150 points in 47 games.

He was a Minto Cup champion in 2015 with Six Nations and scored ten points in six games.

2016 was also Lee’s third season playing field lacrosse for the Rochester Institute of Technology where he led the team in scoring with 90 points in 20 games.

The last Nanaimo player to win the Rookie of the Year award was Cody Bremner in the 2012 season.