Hobey Baker Award heads to St. Paul

ST. PAUL (AP) -- The Hobey Baker Award is moving to St. Paul from the Decathlon Hotel and Athletic Club in Bloomington, its home since the 1981 inception of the award given to the nation's top college hockey player.

The winner will be announced April 6 at the NCAA Frozen Four in Albany, N.Y., and presented April 12 at the Radisson Riverfront Hotel in St. Paul.

The move was in the planning stages before a severe fire caused $1.2 million in damage to the Decathlon Athletic Club last December, Hobey Baker Award co-chairman Jack Carlson said.

The award will be on permanent display at the Xcel Energy Center, the home of the Minnesota Wild and host of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association's Final Five and the Minnesota boys' state high school tournament. The Frozen Four will be held there in 2002.

"This makes sense," said St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman. "There was a lot of discussion about, do you bring the Hobey Baker into a building that houses a professional team? This is the right thing to do, because of this organization's commitment to hockey."

Five Hobey Baker finalists participated in Friday's game between the Wild and the Los Angeles Kings, including the Wild's Scott Pellerin, who won the award in 1992.