{"id":48235,"date":"2025-04-25T02:41:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T02:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/48235\/"},"modified":"2025-04-25T02:41:12","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T02:41:12","slug":"london-knights-sam-dickinson-named-ohl-defenceman-of-the-year-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/48235\/","title":{"rendered":"London Knights Sam Dickinson named OHL Defenceman of the Year &#8211; London"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sam Dickinson was taken 11th overall in the NHL Entry Draft in 2024.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>One day people may wonder what took National Hockey League teams so long to call his name.<\/p>\n<p>Dickinson was named the Ontario Hockey League Defenceman of the Year on April 24 after putting up the best offensive season by a D-man in <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/london-knights\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">London Knights<\/a> history and also leading the entire league in plus-minus.<\/p>\n<p>Dickinson recorded 91 points in the regular season and was a plus-64.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s obviously a huge honour,\u201d said Dickinson. \u201cI have so many people to thank, from everyone with the London Knights to my teammates to my family.<\/p>\n<p>Dickinson joins a long list of distinguished players and Hall of Famers who have earned the honour.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Names like Larry Murphy and Al MacInnis headline the Max Kaminsky Trophy over the years.<\/p>\n<p>Dickinson didn\u2019t exactly find the position naturally from a young age.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/national.jpg\" alt=\"For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet breaking National news<\/p>\n<p>For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, he was close to trying to find something else other than hockey to play after being cut from a travel team for the third year in a row.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Sports<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s when the coach offered him a pair of goalie pads.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy journey to get to defence was pretty long,\u201d laughs Dickinson. \u201c(After not making the team) I was told they needed a backup goalie and I figured since it hadn\u2019t worked out so far that maybe I\u2019d try out goalie. I was 10 or 11 years old and I was still figuring out whether or not I wanted to play hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dickinson stuck it out in net for the entire season and it pushed him in a new direction.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter my one year of goalie I swore to myself that I\u2019d never strap the pads on again and I\u2019ve been true to that to this day,\u201d Dickinson admits. \u201cAfter that I played defence for a year and then forward for a couple of years and was finally moved back to defence full time when i was 14 or 15.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\tTrending Now\n\t<\/p>\n<ul class=\"l-inlineStories__posts c-posts c-posts--inline \">\n<li class=\"c-posts__item\">\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11146926\/toronto-pearson-airport-incident\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/pearson-shooting.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tMan shot dead by police after \u2018dispute\u2019 at Toronto Pearson airport\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li class=\"c-posts__item\">\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11147063\/ricardo-prada-vasquez-deported-el-salvador-ambassador-bridge\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Ricardo-Prada-Vssquez-deported.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tVenezuelan man deported to El Salvador after wrong turn at Ambassador Bridge\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Could playing so many positions have led to his high-end ability to see the game?<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know that I was thinking the game too well at that point,\u201d smiles Dickinson. \u201cI was just skating around, trying to get the puck and put it in the net.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An unconventional path but given where that path has taken him, no one would want to change a thing.<\/p>\n<p>Dickinson is the eighth London Knight to be honoured as the league\u2019s best defenceman.<\/p>\n<p>The most recent Knight to win the Max Kaminsky trophy was Evan Bouchard in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Danny Syvret, John Erskine, Bob Halkidis, Rick Green, Rob Ramage and Brad Marsh are the other London names on the trophy.<\/p>\n<p>Marsh and Ramage were co-winners in 1978.<\/p>\n<p>Dickinson and the Knights are preparing for Game 1 of the OHL\u2019s Western Conference Championship series on Friday, Apr. 25 at 7 p.m., at Canada Life Place.<\/p>\n<p>Coverage will begin at 6:30 p.m., on 980 CFPL, at <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/radio\/am980\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">980cfpl.ca<\/a> and on the iHeart Radio and Radioplayer Canada apps.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Dickinson was taken 11th overall in the NHL Entry Draft in 2024. One day people may wonder&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,257,8861,12248,26244,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-48235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-london-knights","13":"tag-ohl","14":"tag-sam-dickinson","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114396298274669523","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}