Hockey Rants

Thursday, June 22, 2006

NHL Award Winners Announced

No, I did not attend the awards gala here in Vancouver. If not for these damn exams, I would have been there just for the hell of it.

No winners were really that surprising to me. Although I picked Jaromir Jagr to win the Hart (MVP), I am not surprised the writers/voters picked Joe Thornton because of his amazing stretch-run surge that catapulted him to the scoring title. Writers have short memories, it seems.

MVP/Hart: Joe Thornton, San Jose (I picked Jagr)
Norris: Nicklas Lidstrom, Detroit (that was easy)
Vezina: Miikka Kiprusoff, Calgary (the good choice, for sure)
Calder: Alexander Ovechkhin, Washington (He was the obvious choice, even with Sidney's amazing campaign as an 18-year old player)
Lady Byng: Pavel Datsyuk, Detroit (I picked Richards at random. Datsyuk sure played like a softy in the playoffs, which seems to be his MO)
Jack Adams: Lindy Ruff, Buffalo. (He's an ass, but he deserves the award. I picked Laviolette, but there was no undeserving choice in the bunch)
Selke: Rod Brind'Amour (another obvious one)

Lester B. Pearson: It seems the players themselves think more highly of Jagr than the writers as the players gave Jaromir Jagr their MVP award.

“With this award, you get voted on by players you play against every night and I think they understand the game better than the media,” joked Jagr.

Although the Pearson doesn't have the lustre that the HART trophy does, I would probably cherish it more because it was voted on by the peer group rather than a bunch of overweight writers and rumour mongerers. Obviously, Jagr has the respect and ph33r of his fellow players moreso than Thornton. That is an obvious sign.