I'm definitely agreeing that Sam got a raw deal here. His team was the best ever in U.S.C.L. history and he lead his team to the 2010 Championship. I don't know how he got left out of the voting. I know it went by performance rating but come on!! Even though he went 5.0/8 for the year, he beat Becerra on Board 1 in the Championship! Christansen got him twice though during the year but at least give him something!! 
-Mark
Pardon Our Blunders Show Review: Dec 8, 2010
Written by: ChessMarkstheSpot
Welcome to the weekly review of Pardon Our Blunders. Every week our Hosts cover varied topics—all chess-related. As regular viewers know, their coverage normally leads to some very interesting and entertaining banter. Here’s a rundown of this week’s Topic #5:
U.S.C.L. All-Stars: Were the all star selections correct? Were the post-season awards correct?
David said that the all-star picks were about 75% correct as Danny mentioned he thought they were more accurate than that, except for a few things.
Danny didn’t like the fact that the awards were based on performance rating only, rather than accompanying that with overall performance and score, or just performance and score alone. Danny had a problem with this saying that IM Sam Shankland, who was Board 1 for the 2010 Champion New England Nor’Easters didn’t even get mentioned at all in the voting.
The MVP was Julio Becerra from the Miami Sharks for the regular season with 98 points. The closest second was St. Louis GM Hikaru Nakamura with 56 points.
The first team on Board 1 award went to Baltimore’s Sergey Erenburg, and not New England’s IM Sam Shankland, who led his team to a historical year as well as the 2010 U.S.C.L. Championship!
Here is the link for the Official U.S.C.L. Website! AND the Chess.com U.S.C.L. group
For those of you that follow the U.S.C.L., who do you think should’ve made the awards list and who should’ve been left or taken off of it?