The NHL announced 32 nominations for the King Clancy Memorial Trophy. The trophy is annually given to the player who best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and has made a noteworthy humanitarian contribution in his community.
Every NHL team gets one nomination, and the winner receives $25,000, which he can donate to the charity of his choice, and the two runners-up get $5,000 to donate to charities of their choosing. The winner of this award will be chosen by a committee of NHL executives headed by commissioner Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly.
The following criteria are the basis for how they will choose a winner:
Clear and measurable positive impact on the community, investment of time and resources, commitment to a particular cause or community, commitment to the League’s community initiatives, creativity of programming, and the use of influence and engagement of others.
The following players were nominated for this year’s award: Kevin Shattenkirk, Travis Boyd, Patrice Bergeron, Alex Tuch, Mikael Backlund, Jordan Staal, Connor Murphy, Devon Toews, Zach Werenski, Jason Robertson, Dylan Larkin, Darnell Nurse, Aleksander Barkov, Mikey Anderson, Matt Dumba, Jordan Harris, Juuse Saros, Jack Hughes, Anders Lee, Jacob Trouba, Brady Tkachuk, Scott Laughton, Evgeni Malkin, Luke Kunin, Chris Driedger, Brayden Schenn, Victor Hedman, Morgan Rielly, Elias Pettersson, Reilly Smith, Tom Wilson and Blake Wheeler.
The nominations range from star players to depth players and veterans to rookies. They all have one thing in common: exceptional community service during this past season. Previous winners of this award include P.K. Subban, Pekka Rinne, Matt Dumba and Jason Zucker.
The King Clancy Memorial Trophy was originally presented in 1988 by the NHL’s board of governors in honor of Frank “King” Clancy, a longtime NHL player, coach, referee and manager who was voted as one of the 100 greatest NHL players in 2017.
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