He has been teaching high school hockey players the techniques of a game for more than 30 years.

He has taught them effective fore-checking; the finer points of a power play and how to protect a one-goal lead in the final minutes of a game.

But maybe the most lasting lesson Mike Gaffney has passed on to his players is the ability to maintain a positive attitude regardless of what the final win-loss record reads.

“He has given his players a positive attitude during a rebuilding year. His players have been a reflection of his attitude,” a veteran hockey official wrote about Gaffney and his La Salle hockey team on the nomination form for this winter’s Dick Reynolds Team Sportsmanship award.

It was a season in which, for one of the few times over the last five decades, the La Salle boys hockey team didn’t reach the semifinal round of the state tournament. It was a young team whose promise didn’t produce many big victories, yet it was a team that came away with a positive experience and impressed people with their respect for the game and its rules.

It was that performance that earned the Rams selection as one of the 2008 Winter Sports Reynolds Sportsmanship award winners.

The award, named in honor of the late Providence Journal sports writer Dick Reynolds and sponsored by The Journal and the R.I. Interscholastic League Injury Fund, is awarded to a boys and girls team in each of the three Rhode Island high school sports seasons — fall, winter and spring. Only opposing coaches and game officials can nominate teams for the award.

The winner of this winter’s girls award is the Westerly girls basketball team, coached by Holly Misto.

The Bulldogs were a team whose players not only demonstrated the qualities of good sportsmanship, but whose fans also understood that sports passion and sportsmanship can coexist.

“Overall the fans in Westerly are respectful to the officials. They are passionate about their sports and can get emotional during a game. But they are not mean-spirited or rude — just passionate,” a game official wrote about the Bulldogs and their fans.

The good news for Rhode Island high school sports is that there were a lot of teams like the Rams and Bulldogs playing around the state this winter. Teams that for the most part, didn’t finish the season celebrating a state championship, but did experience the thrill of playing games the way they were meant to be played.

That’s why The Journal and the Injury Fund awards the Reynolds Sportsmanship honor each season.

“It was a team that played hard both times we faced them and every time we watched them play. They did not have much luck in the winning department, but always had great sportsmanship — regardless of the score,” an opposing coach wrote about the East Providence hockey team, another team nominated for the boys award.

A total of 18 teams received at least one nomination for the awards this season. They were teams like La Salle and East Providence hockey, which didn’t have winning records during the season, and teams like Westerly girls basketball, which posted an outstanding 14-3 record during the regular season before losing in the Division II playoffs.

And there was one team, the Division II North Smithfield girls hockey team, which also celebrated a state championship.

The other teams receiving nominations were the Central Falls and Burrillville girls basketball teams, the South Kingstown girls gymnastic team; the Mount St. Charles boys basketball and girls and boys swimming teams; the Shea girls swimming team; the Woonsocket girls and boys track teams, the East Greenwich and Barrington boys track teams; the West Warwick boys basketball team; the Chariho girls track team and the Woonsocket wrestling team.

They were teams composed of student/athletes who combined a desire to win with respect for their opponents. That’s not always an easy mix for teenagers, but the players on these teams did it this winter.

Usually those acts of sportsmanship don’t earn headlines. That’s just the way it is in American sports, even high school sports.

But, at least for today, it’s big news.

jgillool@projo.com