The new women’s hockey league has revealed the individual accolades it will be handing out.
On Thursday, the Professional Women’s Hockey League introduced the Billie Jean King MVP Award and Ilana Kloss Playoff MVP Award. The PWHL chose the names to honor the league’s founding advisory board members for the prestigious awards.
“It is only fitting that the league’s most valuable players will be recognized with awards that reflect the leadership of Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss,” senior vice president of hockey operations, Jayna Hefford, said in a release. “To have these awards named in their honour advances the sports legacy of these pioneers, who have devoted themselves to women’s equal rights in sports.”
In addition to the MVP honors, the PWHL will hand out eight other individual awards. They will consist of Forward of the Year, Defender of the Year, Goaltender of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Coach of the Year, Community Leadership Award, Points Leader, and Top Goal Scorer.
The points and goal leader awards will be automatically determined at the end of the regular season. As it stands, Montreal’s Marie-Philip Poulin would be the points champion (22), while Toronto’s Natalie Spooner would be awarded Top Goal Scorer with 15 goals thus far.
The Rookie of the Year Award is limited to players playing professionally in North America for the first time, and are under the age of 25.
All awards–outside of the Ilana Kloss Award–will be based on regular-season performance, similar to how most of the honors are determined in the National Hockey League.
Just three weeks ago, the PWHL introduced the Walter Cup as the trophy the playoff champions will be handed later this year.
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