{"id":23653,"date":"2019-04-26T14:52:26","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T18:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23653"},"modified":"2019-04-26T14:52:35","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T18:52:35","slug":"byfield-humbled-by-ohl-rookie-honours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/byfield-humbled-by-ohl-rookie-honours\/","title":{"rendered":"Byfield \u201chumbled\u201d by OHL Rookie honours"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A familiar face\naround the Aurora rinks has been lauded as the top first-year player in the\nOntario Hockey League.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former York-Simcoe\nExpress captain Quinton Byfield was named on Thursday as the OHL\u2019s Rookie of\nthe Year, earning the Emms Family Award for the 2018-19 season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s super\nhumbling,\u201d said Byfield. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of good rookies this year that could\nhave won it. I think a lot of them deserved it as well. I couldn\u2019t have done it\nby myself and owe a lot to my coaches who put trust in me, gave me every\nopportunity to succeed, and put me in every situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He called his\nchemistry with his first-year teammates, both on and off the ice,\n\u201cunbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had a very\nspecial group, we\u2019re super tight, and that helped us on the ice and really\nhelped me too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Newmarket native,\ntabbed as a consensus first overall pick before even the midpoint of the\n2017-18 season, was named the winner of the Jack Ferguson Trophy last April as\nthe top choice by the Sudbury Wolves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The six-foot-four,\n200 lb. centreman gained a reputation among the minor AAA circles as the right\ncombination of speed and skill, captaining the Minor Midget Express to an OHL\nCup in March of 2018 while leading the team in scoring with 92 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former St.\nMaximilian Kolbe student added twelve points in the Express\u2019 playoff run,\ncementing his position atop the OHL\u2019s most wanted list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Byfield excelled\nimmediately in his jump to the major junior ranks, posting 29 goals and 32\nassists to lead Sudbury in scoring. As a sixteen-year old, he lit the lamp more\nthan any other Wolves rookie since 1997.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His Wolves were swept\nin the second round of the OHL playoffs by the Ottawa 67s, though Byfield\nprefers to look back at the positives and support he received in his rookie\nseason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy billet family, since\nday one, welcomed me into their family and they supported me along the way,\u201d\nsaid Byfield. \u201cTo my mom, dad, sister, Oma, they all believed in me, supported\nme, and sacrificed everything for me just so I could go play hockey. This is\njust really special for me and I\u2019m really honoured.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a press release,\nWolves head coach Cory Stillman, a former Rookie of the Year himself, added\nByfield has done \u201ceverything for us\u201d since joining the squad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s an extremely\ntalented player and is a treat to come to the rink and watch every night\u2026what\nmakes Quinton special, to me, is how hard he plays in all areas of the game. He\nplays on the power play and on the penalty kill. He plays in the last minute if\nwe\u2019re up a goal or if we\u2019re down a goal. I think the biggest thing with Quinton\nis that he\u2019s only going to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Byfield was also named to the OHL\u2019s All-Rookie\nteam, and will be eligible for the NHL\u2019s 2020 draft.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A familiar face around the Aurora rinks has been lauded as the top first-year player in the Ontario Hockey League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/2019-04-25-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-69v","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 09:21:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}