Miami's Miele takes home the Hobey

Andy Miele, as a 5-year-old mite, scored his first-ever goal on a breakaway. Into the wrong net.

He's figured it out since then, and Friday at Xcel Energy Center he was presented with the Hobey Baker Award, the highest honor in college hockey.

"I always wanted to be the best I could be, whether that was the best college hockey player or not," said Miele, who led NCAA Division I with 71 points this season for Miami (Ohio). "It's still hard to believe [and] say that I am the best player in college hockey."

The award is another first for a RedHawks program that is on the rise. Miami won its first CCHA tournament title last month, led by Miele, a 5-8, 175-pound senior forward who scored on his very first college shift in 2007.

He first blipped on the RedHawks' radar when coach Enrico Blasi saw a teenage Miele score a highlight-reel goal during a USA festival tournament in St. Cloud.

"I remember saying to my assistant coaches that we had to have this kid," Blasi said. "He wasn't the biggest guy, but what he brought was a lot of passion and once we met him during the recruiting process, we found a quality young person."

Miele's 71 points this season were 11 more than North Dakota's Matt Frattin, who along with Cam Atkinson of Boston College rounded out the Hobey Baker finalists.

"For us who see him every day, that's not surprising," Blasi said. "But this year we moved him around a little bit -- left wing, right wing -- and it just clicked. Whenever you have a senior who decides to come back and has the success like this, it's special."

Miele signed an entry-level free-agent contract with the Phoenix Coyotes last week.

Frattin, whose college career ended Thursday in North Dakota's upset loss to Michigan in the NCAA Frozen Four semifinals, announced Friday he had signed with Toronto. He is expected to be in the Maple Leafs' lineup Saturday against hated rival Montreal.

"So much tradition and history, I can't imagine how crazy it's going to be," he told a small media gathering.

Local flair on All-America teamFourteen different schools had at least one representative on the 24-member Division I All-America team announced Friday.

Duluth's Jack Connolly, a junior forward for Minnesota Duluth, was a West first-team selection. Wisconsin junior defenseman Jake Gardiner of Minnetonka made the West second team.