Benilde-St. Margaret's Boys' Hockey

Benilde-St. Margaret’s senior defenseman and co-captain Patrick Daly has made a verbal commitment to attend the University of Wisconsin and play hockey for the Badgers beginning with the 2011-12 season.

This season, Daly leads the Red Knights in plus/minus (+27) and power-play points (4) through 11 games. He is logging an average 27 minutes, 42 seconds of ice time per game while registering three goals and 15 points.

For his career, the 6-0, 180-pound senior has 11 goals, 53 points and is +112 in 78 games. He led all Minnesota defensemen with 11 points in five games last year before suffering an ankle injury, which forced him to sit out 17 games before returning to the lineup.

This season, the Hockey Hub Encyclopedia named him one of Minnesota’s top five defensive defensemen as well as a Super 100 Senior and he earned preseason honorable mention all-state recognition from the HBE.

He has the co-winner of BSM’s best defenseman award last year and was named the team’s Andrew Alberts Most Improved Player Award winner in 2008 as the Red Knights finished third at the Class AA state championship.

Besides hockey, Daly is a two-year varsity letterwinner in baseball as the team’s starting centerfielder, helping to lead the Red Knights to back-to-back North Suburban Conference titles. He hit .279 last season while leading the team with 16 runs scored and 11 stolen bases. He did not commit an error defensively while starting all 21 games and was an honorable mention all-conference selection.

On choosing Wisconsin, Daly said "I felt the coach staff there is phenomenal and it’s a dream come true to play in the WCHA, especially for a program held in such high esteem."

A Victoria, Minn., native, Daly came to BSM as a 7th grader in 2005 and said his experience at the school has been nothing but positive.

"Playing for four years for coach (Ken) Pauly and coach (John) Russo has been nothing but good," he said. "Coach Pauly is a phenomenal coach and has helped me grow both on and off the ice. He has great character and that has influenced me greatly.

"Coach Russo, as my position coach, has taught me a great deal and he has tremendous character. I’ve learned so much from him and am thankful for the opportunity to play for both of them for four years.

"Going from my freshman year and reaching the state tournament, to the ups and downs of not getting there and being hurt has taught me a lot but it’s the adversity that you really learn from."

Pauly said Daly’s skating is what grabs everyone’s attentions but it’s his entire package that sells them on the Red Knight captain.

"Anyone who sees his game always comments on his skating," Pauly said. "He has such high-end skating ability that he really is a great prospect for the future.

"His skills are only matched by his personal qualities. He is such a young man of character and a high-end work ethic that it would be foolish to put any type of ceiling on his future.

"As a coaching staff, we could not be more thrilled for Patrick. Wisconsin is consistently one of the nation’s top college programs and it’s an incredible athletic and scholastic opportunity.

"Patrick’s skills have kept BSM among the top high school programs in the state. His skill and leadership in his senior year has BSM within everyone’s top five programs this year and he really has provided a template for what we want a BSM hockey player to look like."

Daly becomes the sixth member of BSM’s 2008 state tournament team to commit to an NCAA Division I program. He will become the first Red Knight hockey player to don the cardinal and white of the Badgers.

He is the second BSM alum in recent years to accept an athletic scholarship from Wisconsin, joining 2008 BSM alum and Minnesota Mr. Basketball Award winner Jordan Taylor, who is a current member of the Badgers’ basketball program.