Travis Morin Named Stars' Nominee for AHL's Man of the Year

CEDAR PARK, Texas - The Texas Stars are proud to announce that Travis Morin has been named the team’s winner of the IOA/American Specialty AHL Man of the Year award for his outstanding contributions to the Central Texas community during the 2017-18 season.

Currently in his ninth season with the franchise, Morin has turned into a staple of the Central Texas area in both community outreach and growing the game of hockey locally in a non-traditional market.

For the past three seasons, Travis and his wife Lindsey have sat on the board of the Texas Stars Foundation and helped spearhead its efforts that have raised more than $148,000 this season alone. That money is used to fund different grants, charitable efforts and causes throughout the Central Texas community. One example of this year’s impact is the Ronald McDonald House location inside Dell’s Children’s Hospital was able to fully renovate their waiting room from a grant issued by the team’s Foundation last season. This year, Morin and his teammates got to see the finished product first hand during a visit to the hospital.

In each of the previous two seasons combined, Travis and Lindsey saw the team’s Foundation raise more than $320,000 for Central Texas.

Morin has also been the face of this season’s Science of Hockey program for the Stars, which visits local fourth and fifth-grade classrooms to explain the role that science can play in the game of hockey. With Morin’s help this season, the Stars’ Science of Hockey program has reached 17 different schools and almost 2,000 students in Central Texas.

Morin also led his teammates on a Trick or Treat Halloween visit and Easter visit to the cancer center of Dell’s Children’s Hospital for Halloween, where he handed out candy to patients and visited with the families and staff for the day. In November of this season, Morin was part of a team that built a Stars-themed children’s playhouse for Habitat for Humanity.

Morin is now one of 30 finalists for the AHL’s 2017-18 Yanick Dupre Memorial Award, honoring the overall IOA/American Specialty AHL Man of the Year. The league award is named after the former Hershey Bears forward and AHL All-Star who died in 1997 following a 16-month battle with leukemia. The winner of the Yanick Dupre Memorial Award will be announced by the American Hockey League at a later date.