Should the NHL rename its awards?

The NBA announced that it will rename some of its end-of-season awards to give more recognition to the more recent all-time greats in the league’s history like Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon and Wilt Chamberlain.

Now the discussion has come to many of the other sports leagues, particularly the National Hockey League, whose awards’ namesakes far outdate some of the best players at each position. Matt Larkin and Steven Ellis discussed on Daily Faceoff Live if the NHL should consider renaming its awards.

Steven Ellis: “I wouldn’t mind a modern retake on some of these names. When Ovechkin retires, is he the new Rocket Richard? There’s things like that where I’d be totally okay with that.”

Matt Larkin: “I do think this doesn’t need to be an absolute. Everything on Twitter is an absolute yes or no, but I think there can be a gray area here, and the NHL can rename some awards. We know the precedent is already there. The Ted Lindsay Award, the NHLPA, that was Lester B. Pearson. It was renamed because Ted Lindsay is the founding forefather of unionizing in hockey, and the NHL realized that it’s a much more appropriate name for the award.

So I do think you could go through certain awards and say ‘Ok, Art Ross trophy for the leading scorer, how can that not be Gretzky? How is there not an award named after Gretzky?’ We had a Mark Messier award while he was still playing, I don’t understand that. Other ones like the Vezina, well the Vezina’s already named after an elite legendary goalie, so that can probably stay as is.

But the most egregious one, the one that I think would be the first award to change is the Conn Smythe trophy. We know the documented history of Conn Smythe’s racism towards Herb Carnegie, the comments he made, the discrimination. So that’s an easy switch, I’m sure we can find another name, another player that was famously clutch in the playoffs. Sidney Crosby would actually be the best person to name the Conn Smythe trophy after, if we’re basing it based on playoff performance, when his career is done.

So that’s where I land. I think it’s somewhere in the middle, it doesn’t have to be every award, but I think you can go on an award-by-award basis and change the ones that make sense to change.”

You can watch the full episode here…