Former BGSU Falcon hockey player Jordan Sigalet has been nominated for an ESPY award for “Best Comeback Athlete” of 2004-05. Sigalet is the first BGSU athlete to be nominated for an ESPY award. His competition includes the University of Washington’s Kayla Burt, Carolina Panthers’ Mark Fields, and Olympic wrestler Rulon Gardner.
Voting for the ESPYs are held online by fans. The ESPYs (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly) began in 1993 to commemorate the finest in both collegiate and professional sports. This year they wil be held at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles and will air on ESPN on Sunday, July 17 at 9 p.m.
Sigalet was picked in the NHL draft of 2001 by the Boston Bruins in the 7th round. However, in March of 2004 he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and went public with his battle on December 11, 2004. Last season he played in 32 games compiling a 2.89 goals against average and a .915 save percentage. With Sigalet minding the goal, the Falcons were able to achieve their best record in nearly a decade.
He ended his collegiate career as BGSU’s all-time leader in save percentage and second all-time at BGSU with a 2.998 goals against average. He was third all-time with a career total of 3,147 saves and fifth all-time in minutes logging 5,924:09 over his career.
Sigalet has been named to the All-CCHA First Team in 2004 and the All-CCHA Second Team in 2005. He was also a finalist for the 2005 Hobey Baker Memorial Award, which is given annually to the top collegiate hockey player. He was the first BGSU finalist for the award since 1995 when Brian Holzinger won the award.
Among the other finalists, Kayla Burt of the Washington Huskies suffered a cardiac arest brought on by a rare heart condition in 2002. She was saved when her teammates performed CPR on her. She would return two years later as Washington’s leader in both scoring and assists.
Mark Fields of the Carolina Panthers played in last year’s NFL Pro Bowl after missing a season because of cancer.
Rulon Gardner, an Olympic wrestler, lost a toe to frostbite after being stranded on a mountainside in sub-zero temperatures. Two years later he captured a bronze medal in Greco-Roman wrestling at the Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.
Past winners of the ESPY for “Best Comback Athlete” include Tommy Maddox, Pittsburg Steelers quarterback and one of the only survivors of the XFL, Andres Galarraga, who came back from non-Hodgkins lymphoma and went on to go to five all-star games in baseball and Lance Armstrong, who won a battle against testicular cancer and went on to win the Tour de France for six consecutive years.
If students would like to vote for Sigalet, or any other ESPY category, they can go to http://espn.go.com/espy2005/s/05nomineesindex.html.
