UND Men's Hockey selects captains

GRAND FORKS, N.D. – University of North Dakota Men’s Hockey Coach Dave Hakstol announced today that senior defenseman Dillon Simpson has been named team captain for the 2013-14 season. Hakstol also announced that junior forwards Michael Parks and Stephane Pattyn will serve as assistant captains.

Simpson, a native of Edmonton, Alberta, has collected nine goals and 43 assists in 114 career games. Last season he was named UND’s Most Improved Player after leading the team’s defensemen with a career-high five goals and 19 assists in 42 games. In his three years as a collegian, Simpson has helped lead UND to three straight NCAA regional championship game appearances and a 2010-11 berth in the NCAA Frozen Four.

A managerial finance and corporate accounting major, Simpson was a three-time All-WCHA Academic Team selection and a two-time WCHA Scholar-Athlete. He was a fourth-round draft pick (92nd overall) of the Edmonton Oilers in 2011. Simpson’s father, Craig, won two Stanley Cups with Edmonton during a 10-year National Hockey League career that also included stops in Pittsburgh and Buffalo.

Parks, a native of St. Louis, Mo., was UND’s Rookie of the Year in 2011-12 when he collected 12 goals and 10 assists in 42 games. Last season he scored seven goals and one assist in an injury-plagued season that limited him to just 25 games. A general studies major, Parks has received UND’s Engelstad Family Foundation Endowment in each of the last two seasons. He was selected by Philadelphia in the fifth round (149^th overall) of the 2010 NHL draft.

Pattyn, who hails from Ste. Anne, Manitoba, has missed just one game through his first two seasons at UND, amassing six goals and five assists in 83 games. Last season, both of Pattyn’s goals came against top-12 opponents, while three of his four goals as a freshman in 2011-12 were game-winners. An entrepreneurship major, Pattyn has previous captaincy experience having served as team captain for Portage in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League in 2010-11 before arriving at UND.

UND takes to the ice for the first time on Sunday, Oct. 6, when it hosts the University of Manitoba in exhibition action. The regular season begins the following weekend when non-conference foe Vermont visits Ralph Engelstad Arena Oct. 11-12.