Gus Schumacher, Jeremy Swayman, Andrew Kurka
The men vying for the 2026 Pride of Alaska Award as Alaska’s top adult athlete are a colorful bunch. Colorful as in gold, silver and bronze.
The three finalists comprise a podium of excellence — Olympic gold-medal hockey player Jeremy Swayman of Anchorage, Olympic silver-medal cross-country skier Gus Schumacher of Anchorage and Paralympic bronze medal sit-skier Andrew Kurka of Palmer.
The women’s finalists include a cyclist who is no stranger to podiums, a skier who got her first taste of the Olympics and a basketball player who led her team to the NCAA Tournament.
Kristen Faulkner of Homer captured three gold medals at the recent Pan-Am Games; Kendall Kramer of Fairbanks made her first World Cup ski season a memorable one; and Sayvia Sellers of Anchorage piled up points, assists and post-season honors for the University of Washington.
Winners will be announced April 16 by the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame and honored June 3 at a ceremony at the Anchorage Museum.
All three men’s finalists returned from the 2026 Milan Cortina Games with medals.
Swayman was one of three goaltenders for the men’s hockey team, which won its first Olympic gold medal since the 1980 Miracle on Ice team. He made one appearance, a 6-3 win over Denmark.
He’s also having a solid season in the NHL. A 27-year-old Boston Bruins veteran, Swayman ranks fourth in the NHL with 30 wins. His 30-17-4 record includes a 2.70 goals-against average and a .908 save percentage.
Schumacher, 25, became the third U.S. man — and the second in 50 years — to win an Olympic medal in cross-country skiing. He and partner Ben Ogden of Vermont claimed the silver medal in the team sprint, with Schumacher’s powerful final leg securing second place for the Americans.
The Olympic medal was the highlight of a season that also included three World Cup medals for Schumacher — one gold, one silver, one bronze — and a No. 7 ranking in the overall World Cup standings, the best ranking by an American man in decades.
Kurka, 34, capped a distinguished 16-year career by earning the bronze medal in the super-G — the third Paralympic medal of his career. At the end of the Games, teammates picked him to be one of two U.S. flag bearers for the Closing Ceremonies.
Besides his triumph in Italy, Kurka won three World Cup medals in his final season of competition to bring his career total to 27, most of them in downhill and super-G. He bows out as a four-time Paralympian with three Paralympic medals and six World Championship medals.
Sayvia Sellers, Kendall Kramer, Kristen Faulkner
The three women’s finalists competed on big stages at the Olympics, the Pan-Am Games and the NCAA Tournament.
Kramer, 23, made a smooth transition from college to full-time World Cup skiing by qualifying for her first Olympics. She skied in two races in Italy, placing 26th in the 50-kilometer classic and 38th in the 10-kilometer freestyle.
She hit a milestone in her first race after the Olympics by claiming ninth place in a 20-kilometer skiathlon in Finland — one of the season’s best World Cup results by a U.S. woman not named Jessie Diggins.
Though she spent most of the season in Europe, Kramer managed to win two national-championship medals — bronze in the 20K during the Christmas break, and silver in the 40K in the recent spring nationals.
Faulkner, 33, made a successful return from shoulder surgery by winning golds in the individual pursuit and team pursuit at the Pan-Am track cycling championships in Chile and another gold in the time trial at the Pan-Am Continental road championships in Colombia.
She had a late-summer surgery to repair cartilage damaged in a crash during last summer’s Tour de France and spent part of the off-season with her arm in a sling, according to an interview with her EF Pro Cycling team.
She came back strong to add to a career medal haul that includes two golds from the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Sellers, a junior point guard at the University of Washington, was a key component for a Huskies team that won 20 games for the first time in nearly a decade.
She posted team-highs of 18 points per game, 3.7 assists per game and 52 steals in 33 games. In a season-ending, 62-50 overtime loss to TCU in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Sellers totaled 18 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists.
She was named to the all-Big Ten team and the all-West Region team, which makes her a candidate for All-America honors.
Four of the six finalists are previous winners of Pride of Alaska adult-division awards:
- Faulkner won the women’s award last year in recognition of her two gold medals at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
- Schumacher won the men’s award in 2024 and 2020, both times for World Cup victories that made U.S. history.
- Swayman won the men’s award in 2023 for his 24-6-4 record as part of the NHL’s best goaltending tandem during the 2022-23 season.
- Kurka won the men’s award in 2018 after grabbing gold and silver at the 2018 Pyeongchang Paralympics.
The Pride of Alaska men’s and women’s awards are among seven Directors’ Awards presented annually by the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame. Finalists and winners are decided by a vote of the Hall of Fame’s board of directors.
Other honors include two youth-division Pride of Alaska Awards, two Trajan Langdon Awards for leadership, inspiration and sportsmanship (one for adults, one for youths) and the Joe Floyd Award for significant and lasting contributions to Alaska through sports.
Finalists for those awards will be announced later this week.
Winners will be honored in June as part of the induction ceremony for the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026. Those honorees include three individuals and two moments, chosen by the Hall of Fame’s selection panel.
The individuals are adventurer Dick Griffith, basketball player Butch Lincoln and bowler Sean Rash.
The moments are the1993 triple-overtime state basketball title game between the East and Bartlett boys, and the 1928 record-setting Mount Marathon run by 16-year-old Ephriam Kalmakoff.
Pride of Alaska past winners
Men
2025: David Norris
2024: Gus Schumacher
2023: Jeremy Swayman
2022: Scott Patterson
2021: Dallas Seavey
2020: Gus Schumacher
2019: Keegan Messing
2018: Andrew Kurka
2017: David Norris
2016: Dallas Seavey; Soldotna football team (co-winners)
2015: Erik Flora
2014: Trevor Dunbar; Eric Strabel (co-winners)
2013: Mario Chalmers
2012: Alaska Aces
Women
2025: Kristen Faulkner
2024: Alissa Pili
2023: Alissa Pili
2022: Clair DeGeorge
2021: Rosie Brennan
2020: Ruthy Hebard
2019: Caroline Kurgat
2018: Kikkan Randall; Roxie Wright (co-winners)
2017: Morgan Hooe
2016: UAA basketball team; Allie Ostrander (co-winners)
2015: Allie Ostrander
2014: Kikkan Randall
2013: Nunaka Valley softball team
2012: UAA basketball team
Other women receiving votes on the 2026 ballot (alphabetical order): Rosie Fordham, Adarra Hagland, Ruby Lindquist, Elaina Mack, Noah Meierotto, Klaire Rhodes, Sam Skold.
Other men receiving votes on the 2026 ballot (alphabetical order): Tyler Aklestad/Nick Olestad, Hasaan Herrington, Jessie Holmes, David Norris, Colton Paul, Brandon Pili, Obed Vargas.
