Watling Wins OHL Scholastic Award

Former Chatham Maroons star Patrick Watling has been honoured as one of the OHL’s best academic athletes, winning the Roger Neilson Memorial Award as the league’s Top Post-Secondary Student.

Watling, who played for the Chatham Maroons in 2009-2010, and 2010-2011, where he scored 82 points in 88 games, is an ‘A’ student, studying engineering through the University of Guelph, the same community he started his OHL career in with the Storm.

This season, Watling played for the OHL’s Soo Greyhounds.

“I am really excited to have been chosen to win the Roger Neilson Award,” Watling said in the OHL news release. “To be recognized throughout the league for my efforts as a student is an honour and I am very grateful. The way the Soo Greyhounds organization approaches schooling it has made it easy for me to excel. They have given me all the resources I need to succeed in a very intense hockey environment.”

In 65 games this season, Watling, a 20-year-old, had 18 goals and 54 points, his best single season output in his three year OHL career.

“Patrick winning the Roger Neilson award today is further confirmation that an individual can have elite success in the classroom and on the ice while playing in the Ontario Hockey League,” Soo Greyhounds General Manager Kyle Dubas said in the release.

Clachan’s Travis Konecny was also named to the OHL’s All Scholastic Team as the Ottawa 67s representative on the list.

The Greyhounds recently added another local hockey product, drafting Chatham-Kent Cyclones netminder Joseph Raaymakers in the second round, 37th overall in this year’s OHL Priority Selection Draft.