On Saturday, November 15th the Grizzlies faithful gathered at the BluWater Bistro in Greenlake for their annual awards night.
With the coveted "Jim Trenerry" Best & Fairest trophy up for grabs it was sure to be a great night. Of course there would be a number of fun awards along the way as well.
Things kicked off with some stats from the past season - 59 players and 11 rookies, a divisional championship (Divsion 2) and a runner up placing (Division 4) along with a win over Vancouver in the PNW Championship earlier in the year.
The first trophies of the night went to Ryan Kastl and Mike Liddell as our Rookies of the Year - both had great seasons. Ryan also took out the MVP award at the National Championships in the final - quite a feat for a first year player.
Best Clubman went to Ian Cleary who did a great job all year helping out at Metro games and lugging around the goal posts.
Best Defender went to Chris Richmond. Richo's first year as a Grizzly lived up to all expectations after moving northward from San Diego.
The Goalkicking award went to Josh Anfinson for the second year in a row. The first ever back to back winner of the award.
The award for the Best Game at Nationals went to Ed Fayette after a great game against the usually dominant Nashville full forward.
The Nationals MVP award for overall conistancy at the National tournament last month went to Zach Johns. Zach capped off a "fairytail season" after only picking up the game earlier this year.
The final award of the night was the Jim Trenerry Overall Grizzlies MVP award. For the first time it was won by a fellow South Australian, Eric Butler. After playing full back for most of last year and winning the 2007 Best Defender award, Eric made the switch to the forward line for this year and proved he can perform at both ends of the field.
With what may become an annual occurance, the 2008 Video Review showed some of the great times that we had as a club off the field as well.
The night culminated with Matt Muller and Andrew Donlen being the first inductees into the Grizzlies Hall of Fame. They were both presented with awards along with their photos being added to the Hall of Fame plaque at the sponsor pub, the Kangaroo & Kiwi.
Photos from the night can be found here.