Mann-Northway Northern Bears Head Coach Steve Young was one of three members of the club to receive a league award, winning the 2025 Shannon Miller & Wally Kozak Coach of the Year. (Logan Lehmann/paNOW Staff)

By Logan Lehmann

Awards

Northern Bears take home trio of league awards

Mar 13, 2025 | 1:57 PM

Three members of the Mann-Northway Northern Bears received one of the Sask. Female U18 AAA Hockey League’s (SFU18AAAHL) awards earlier this week.

League Vice President Jean Fauchon was in Prince Albert ahead of the Northern Bears playoff matchup against Swift Current on Sunday to hand out some year-end awards to forward Jersie Andersen, goaltender Annika Neufeldt, and head coach Steve Young.

Bears rookie Andersen paved the way this season, leading the team in scoring with 32 points (14G-18A) enroute to winning the 2025 Dana Antal Rookie of the Year. The Meadow Lake product tallied eight multi-point performances in 30 games this season and was awarded the First Star of the Game in six different contests. Additionally, she was awarded the First Star of the Month in October, when she scored six points (2G-4A) in seven games. She becomes the first Northern Bear to win Rookie of the Year since the league began handing out the award in 2010.

Neufeldt was exceptional in her final year between the pipes for P.A., with this season behind her best in AAA. The Waldheim-born puck stopper managed a 2.32 GAA and a .929 SV%, good enough to finish fourth in the league among goaltenders. Despite not winning goalie MVP honours, Neufeldt was named an SFU18AAAHL Second Team All-Star and was awarded the Carol Scheibel Scholastic Player of the Year for her work in the classroom. Her Scholastic award marks the third year in a row that a Northern Bear has won, following Julia Cey in 2024 and Jazlyn Petreman in 2023.

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Finally, the Bears bench boss Steve Young was this year’s recipient of the Shannon Miller & Wally Kozak
Coach of the Year award. He won after guiding P.A. to a 10-15-2-3 (W-L-OTW-OTL) record this season, an improvement from 6-18-3-3 a year prior. He also headed the Bears to a Canadian Crown Tournament win in Devon, Alta. earlier in the season. This is the second time Young has won the Coach of the Year after he shared the honour in 2023 alongside Swift Current’s Terry Pavely.

The Northern Bears are now in the offseason as they were eliminated from the playoffs this past Sunday at the hands of Swift Current. The next event happening for the club is their spring camp, set for April 17-18 at the Art Hauser Centre. More information about the camp can be found by clicking here.

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loganc.lehmann@pattisonmedia.com

On Bluesky: @loganlehmann.bsky.social