Boston College hockey sophomore one of eight chosen

Boston College sophomore Brooks Dyroff has been selected one of eight finalists for the 2011 Hockey Humanitarian Award, according to an announcement made by the organization.

The BNY Mellon Wealth Management Humanitarian Award is presented annually to college hockey's finest citizen and seeks to recognize college hockey players, Division I or Division III, male or female, who give back to their community in the true humanitarian spirit. 

Dyroff joins Alex Higgins (St. Michaels), Aleca Hughes (Yale), Sam Kuzyk (Adrian College), Tucker Mullin (St. Anselm College), Trevor Nill (Michigan State), Whitney Pappas (Robert Morris) and Brigid O'Gorman (Connecticut College) as finalists for the award, which is to be presented in a ceremony on Friday, April 8 as part of the 2011 NCAA Frozen Four in St. Paul, Minn. 

Dyroff, a forward on the men's hockey team, co-founded CEO 4 Teens (www.ceo4teens.com), a non-profit organization which offers educational opportunities to teens in third-world countries, in December 2006. The organization has since sent 30 Indonesian students from low-income families on a year-long computer programming course at Indonesia's Campuhan College. In June 2008, he created a microfinance program to benefit CEO 4 Teens scholarship recipients upon successful completion of educational program. 

Dyroff furthered his outreach to the Boston area as freshman at Boston College in 2009-10, awarding three scholarships to Boston-area teenagers to Roxbury Community College's GED program.  Also active in after-school community outreach at the Saint Columbkille Partnership School in Brighton, Mass., Dyroff has established a mentoring program between Boston College hockey players and students of Saint Columbkille. 

"Brooks is an incredibly deep young man. There's so much more to him that what you see on the ice," head BC hockey coach Jerry York said. "When we were recruiting him, we wondered how his skill set would complement our team and our program. One day his coach at Phillips Andover, Dean Boylan, grabbed me and told me about the impact that Brooks had made not only within the hockey locker room but within the entire community at the school. He was a role model for all the students at Andover Academy. After that, he told me about Brooks' accomplishments on a world-wide scale. He had set up scholarship funding for students in Indonesia and had been involved in several additional non-hockey related activities. I said to myself this is the type of person we'd like to have in our program. It doesn't matter if he scores 35 goals in his career or two goals. He brings so much to our team and to college hockey. We're just proud to have Brooks as a part of our program."

An avid filmmaker, Dyroff has produced two documentaries about his organization's non-profit work in Indonesia. His first film, A Drop In The Bucket, which featured several students sponsored by CEO 4 Teens and the subsequent impact on their lives, captured "Best Student Documentary" at Newport Beach Film Festival and Bayou Inspirational Film Festival while also capturing "Best of 2008" honors at Kids First Film Festival  Dyroff's second film, Change for Change, is about the micro-finance program created to help teens in Indonesia and depicts how a few dollars can have a big impact on the lives of these teens. It was nominated for the "Best Public Service Film" at the 2009 Swansea Film Festival in Wales, United Kingdom. 

A 2009-10 Hockey East Association All-Academic Team honoree, Dyroff is enrolled in Boston College's School of Arts & Sciences as an undeclared major. He is a 2009 graduate of Phillips Andover Academy where he served as captain of the hockey team.  Dyroff is a native of Boulder, Colo. 

For additional information on the award, visit: www.hockeyhumanitarian.org