Casey Soulies Wins the 2026 Kenny Powers

The ballots are counted, the room is divided, and Casey Soulies has officially been voted the 2026 Kenny Powers Trophy winner.

Soulies collected three of the league’s 10 votes—just one more than Bobby Merten III, Casey Lubawy, and Brad Realmuto, who finished in a three-way tie for second. Chris Waller took the remaining vote. Seven of the 10 ballots landed on four different owners, making this a win without a landslide and a decision built for arguments.

The commissioner becomes the candidate

Soulies already owns the league’s deepest championship résumé: five titles across a founding-owner run that began in 2003. The Kenny Powers Trophy measures something different. It rewards volume, confidence, chaos, and the ability to remain impossible to ignore. In 2026, the league decided its commissioner checked more of those boxes than anyone else.

This is Soulies’ first Kenny Powers win. It joins five championship rings in his trophy case and gives The Fighting Irish another piece of hardware—though this one arrives with fewer claims of greatness and considerably more evidence from the group chat.

“Three votes. One trophy. Zero chance the other seven hear the end of it.”

A one-vote escape

The final margin was as narrow as possible. One changed ballot would have forced a tie. Instead, Soulies stood alone at the top while three former winners and contenders crowded the line behind him. Lubawy remains the all-time leader with three Kenny Powers trophies; Soulies now enters the roll of champions with one.

The result is official, the 2026 bobblehead belongs in Casey’s case, and the campaign for 2027 has probably already started.