In the middle of the excitement occurring over the last few days, with the Seattle Thunderbirds beating the Prince George Cougars twice in the playoffs and all, you may have missed some more cool news. Two T-Birds have been named Western Conference First-Team All-Stars: Center Mathew Barzal and defenseman Ethan Bear!

Let’s face it—their selection is not unexpected given their track records this year, but you do wonder why a few other notable Birds didn’t make the selection. Barzal was 11^th in the league in scoring as well as voted the team’s MVP. His stats included 27 goals and 61 assists for 88 points for the season. Barzal will be off to play for the NHL with the New York Islanders after being selected during the first round of selections, which is a big honor for any player. He was the 16^th pick in the draft overall.

Bear ranked even higher among defensemen, ending up in 5^th place among them. The Birds dubbed him Defenseman of the Year after he scored 19 goals and 46 assists for 65 points this season and he’ll be in the NHL next season as well. Bear was selected by the Edmonton Oilers during the fifth round of drafts. He ended up being the 124^th pick for the 2015 draft.

Bear and Barzal will be joining some of the top players in the league for the All-Star games. Their goaltender will be Cory Hart of the Everett Silvertips—no surprise there, seeing as how Hart was a big factor keeping the Birds behind for so many games when they just couldn’t beat the Tips. It will be interesting to see them play together. The other defenseman for the team will be Joe Hicketts of the Victoria Royals. Joining Barzal on the offense will be forwards Tyson Baillie of the Kelowna Rockets and Parker Bowles of the Tri-City Americans. Barzal and Bear already know each other pretty well but they will have to adjust to the rest of their teammates. Still, it has to be an advantage to have one of your teammates on your new team.

A few other teams will also have the same advantage, however. Two players from the Kamloops Blazers, for example, will be on the second team, while three players from the Moose Jaw Warriors will be on the first Eastern Conference team. To see the full lineups, click here.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia