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Badgers goalie Desbiens perseveres through injury to win Patty Kazmaier Award

Mar 18, 2017 | 10:45 AM

The resilience of goaltender Ann-Renee Desbiens was tested in her senior year with the University of Wisconsin Badgers.

The 22-year-old from La Malbaie, Que., injured her knee playing for the Canadian women’s hockey team in December and also sustained a concussion in a Badgers game in October.

Desbiens weathered those slings and arrows to win the Patty Kazmaier Award as the top player in NCAA Division I women’s hockey.

She was the sixth Canadian and just the third goaltender to claim the honour in its two decades.

Desbiens received the award Saturday at the women’s Frozen Four tournament in St. Charles, Mo. Her season’s setbacks made Desbiens hungrier to get back in the net and play well.

“It taught me to appreciate the game even more because you never know when it could end,” Desbiens told The Canadian Press.

“I took for granted I was always going to be healthy and everything was going to be just fine until I had two injuries that could have ended my career. It was hard, but at the end of the day, it made me love the game ever more.”

Clarkson forward Cayley Mercer of Exeter, Ont., and University of Minnesota-Duluth forward Lara Stalder of Lucerne, Switzerland, were the other two finalists for the award.

Desbiens and the Badgers take on Mercer and Clarkson in the women’s Frozen Four final Sunday.

After three straight years of losing out in the semifinal, the Badgers reached the championship game. Desbiens made 22 saves in a 1-0 shutout of Boston College in Friday’s semifinal.

“It’s definitely an awesome feeling,” she said. “It was definitely nice to finally win a semifinal and make it to the game where you get to win a trophy if you win it.

“We’re excited to play one more game and as a senior, it’s always nice to get one more.”

Desbiens led the NCAA in save percentage (.963), goals-against average (0.69), wins (25) and shutouts (15).

She held opponents to one goal or less in 28 of 34 games this season. Her 54 career shutouts are an NCAA record.

Desbiens won a silver medal with Canada at the 2015 women’s world championship. She suffered a knee injury nine minutes into a game against the U.S. on Dec. 17 in Plymouth, Mich.

Desbiens was down in her butterfly stopping a shot when her left knee appeared to buckle. She needed help off the ice. It was determined to be a sprain and she was back playing for the Badgers in January.

Desbiens missed four games after taking a knee to the head in an Oct. 29 game against Minnesota State.

“Overall, I got pretty lucky I was able to come back,” Desbiens said.

The accounting major said she hit the gym harder than ever this season to make sure she’d have the mental and physical stamina to go the distance should they have the chance to play for a national title.

Previous Canadian winners of the Patty Kazmaier were Clarkson’s Jamie Lee Rattray of Kanata, Ont. (2014), Mercyhurst’s Vicki Bendus of Wasaga Beach, Ont., (2010); Harvard’s Sarah Vaillancourt of Sherbrooke, Que., (2008); Wisconsin’s Sara Bauer of St. Catharines, Ont., (2006); and Harvard’s Jennifer Botterill of Winnipeg (2001, 2003).

The award is named in honour of the late Patty Kazmaier, who played for Princeton from 1981 to 1986. She died at age 28 of a blood disease.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press