2025 | Missouri | BOYS

Kirkwood Pioneers | Pioneers | BOYS

The Hobey Baker Memorial Award is for a senior player who embodies that values that the game teaches – coachability, strength, integrity, commitment, teamwork, community building and outstanding sportsmanship – Nick Kruszka checks all the boxes here.

Nick was the ultimate team player, throughout Nick’s time as a High School player, the Coaches asked Nick to fulfill certain roles of which weren’t exactly the most glamourous of roles per se, but Nick never blinked, he accepted these various roles and took pride in executing what we as coaches asked of him. He was the type of player/leader that tried every night to drag his teammates into battle with him by leading by example.

Lastly, Nick believed in our team’s culture and bought into the team’s overall identity/message on how we were going to play the game as a team. He trickled this message down to under classmen and promoted it when the Coaches weren’t around. As a Coaching staff, we can’t thank Nick enough for being a selfless player/individual.

Mark Fischer
Varsity Head Coach
Kirkwood Pioneer Hockey