Elliotte Friedman of CBC's Hockey Night in Canada recently suggested changing the names of some of the NHL's individual trophies.
He cites the NHL's naming its newest award, for individual goal-scoring in a season, the Maurice "Rocket" Richard trophy, as a "welcome embrace of history" for a league which did away with the Norris, Adams, Smythe and Patrick Divisions in favor of the Northeast, Atlantic, Central and Pacific Divisions.
Friedman suggests changing all the names of the individual trophies to reflect those of the game's greatest players. His suggestions:
Hart to Howe, Norris to Orr, Art Ross to Gretzky, Vezina to Plante, Byng to Beliveau, Selke to Gainey, Jennings to Bower/Sawchuk, Smythe to Roy, Adams to Bowman, and the Clancy Award to the Koivu award in honor of Saku Koivu once he retires.
Reading Friedman's blog it's difficult to tell if he's serious, just musing out loud or being tongue in cheek with this post, but to me his suggestion destroys the very history he claims he wants the league to embrace.
The Hart, Norris, Ross, Smythe and Jennings trophies were all named in honor of the men who played significant roles in the building of the National Hockey League. Without them, there would be no NHL hockey. To rename their trophies would be to ignore the roles they played in the game's history and development.
The Vezina was named for the first great NHL goaltender, Montreal's Georges Vezina, and was created to honor his memory after he died tragically of tuberculosis in 1925. It is one of the league's oldest and respected trophies. Re-naming his trophy would be spitting on his memory.
Jack Adams was a legendary coach and general manager with the Detroit Red Wings, who built that club into a powerhouse during the 1950s. Franke Selke was one of the NHL's greatest general managers, responsible for building the Leafs and Canadiens dynasties of the late 1940s and 1950s.
Frank "King" Clancy was one of hockey's true characters, playing 16 seasons in the NHL as one of the greatest defensemen in the league's early history and was enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame. He later went on to become a referee and then a coach and team executive with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Clancy was known for his charity work and this trophy was created in his memory to be given each season to the league's most charitable player.
I find it odd that Friedman bemoaned the league not embracing its history and then turns around and recommends doing the opposite by calling for the renaming of individual awards.
Do we turn around in, say, another fifty or one hundred years and call
for the trophies to be renamed again if future greats end up eclipsing
the records of the players Friedman believes the individual awards
should be changed to?
Those trophies were created to commemorate men who played important roles in building up the National Hockey League. To rename them isn't embracing history, it's forgetting the league's roots.
Recently in my Foxsports.com column I wrote about how important it is for the National Hockey League’s efforts to regain its visibility in the American sports market for its most marketable players – Washington’s Alexander Ovechkin and Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby – to elevate their play in this year’s post-season.
In the article (“NHL Needs Ovechkin, Crosby to Shine In Playoffs”), I wrote that the two have been considered this hockey generation’s versions of Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, two of the greatest stars in league history who helped the NHL reached its highest level of popularity in its history.
I suggested that the NHL is hoping those two can raise their post-season performances the way their predecessors did as it could only help the league improve its sagging popularity in the United States.
Unfortunately, judging by many of the comments in response to that column, the point was missed, as several readers believed the article was trying to draw a direct comparison between Crosby and Ovechkin with Gretzky and Lemieux, which wasn’t the intent.
Let me repeat the point: Crosby and Ovechkin are the NHL’s biggest, most marketable stars and the league is hoping its two current young superstars will generate more interest in its product amongst American sports fans.
If there is a direct comparison to be made, its that Ovechkin and
Crosby are every bit as important to the NHL as Gretzky and Lemieux were in their heyday.
It’s not about suggesting “Sid the Kid” and “Alexander the Gr8t” are as great or greater than “The Great One” or “Super Mario”.
That is for history to decide once Ovechkin and Crosby have retired, which hopefully won't be for a long time.
The Pittsburgh Penguins, particularly their whiz kids led by Sidney Crosby, learned last season what it took to win in the regular season, and this year, they learned a hard lesson of what it takes to win in the playoffs.
Yes, I predicted the Penguins to upset the Senators. They had such an impressive second half, and despite their average-at-best defensive game, proved on more than one occasion that no lead was safe against them.
Talent and youthful exuberance carried them to respectability this season, but it wasn’t enough to overcome a seasoned team with defensive depth like the Ottawa Senators.
This early post-season exit for the Penguins is disappointing for them and their fans, but it’s only one signpost on the road to greatness for this team.
Crosby proved he could play well in the playoffs, and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury showed he was capable of overcoming a shaky start to a playoff series to cope with the intense pressure a goaltender faces in the post-season. 18-year-old Jordan Staal also gave a good account of himself in his first playoff series. These three will only get better as time goes by.
Other Penguins, like Evgeni Malkin, Ryan Whitney and Colby Armstrong, didn’t fare as well, but after the dust has settled from this series they’ll have learned how to step up their game in the post-season.
Many observers, myself included, compared this year’s young Penguins to the Wayne Gretzky-led Edmonton Oilers kiddie corps of the early 1980s.
As one hockey pundit noted, those Oilers didn’t win the Stanley Cup in their first playoff year, so it was obviously unrealistic to expect the Penguins to pull off that feat.
That young Oilers team took four long years of learning sometimes painful lessons in the playoffs, often against more experienced teams, before they finally won the Stanley Cup.
That young Oilers team was also eliminated in the first round of their first playoff series.
Like those Oilers, the Crosby-led Penguins will lick their wounds and take away the necessary information needed to perform better in future playoffs.
They were taught a valuable lesson this year on the kind of defensive game required to win in the playoffs.
It’s a lesson no one on the Penguins, from owner to GM to coach to Crosby to whichever young prospect should join them down the road, will ever forget.
Someone had to pay for the dismal record of the Phoenix Coyotes in recent years, and on April 11th, their management took the fall.
GM Michael Barnett, assistant general manager Laurence Gilman, and Senior Executive and Vice President of Hockey Operations Cliff Fletcher were fired on Wednesday.
To date there’s been no word on who’ll replace them, although there are already rumors aplenty, with former Toronto Maple Leafs GM Pat Quinn and current Vancouver Canucks assistant GM Steve Tamballini oft-mentioned.
Yet one has to wonder if the Coyotes went far enough. Perhaps a coaching change should also be in order.
Former California Seals netminder Gary “Cobra” Simmons (the subject of a two-part interview by your truly back in February) recently raised that point to me, suggesting the club would be better off if Wayne Gretzky were to step down as head coach.
“Cobra”, who now lives near Phoenix and follows the Coyotes, said, “I watched his team again last night (April 3, against the St. Louis Blues) and they remind me of the Seals. They would beat the Seals in a close game but only because we are in our fifties and sixties.”
Zing! And if you’re a Coyotes player or a fan of the team, that one’ll leave a mark. Cobra's got a sharp wit, but also a keen eye.
Gretzky has shown that he can handle himself reasonably well as an NHL head coach, despite a lack of experience in the role, but one has to wonder if he’d be better suited coaching a more experienced team than one struggling to find its way like the Coyotes.
Regardless of reason or excuses, the Coyotes are a team that could use perhaps a more seasoned hand behind the bench, someone to motivate the veterans and develop the youngsters, which Gretzky doesn’t appear capable of doing.
Now as a minority owner of the Coyotes, Gretzky obviously can’t be fired as head coach and instead would have to step down. But who, if anyone, will tell him that?
Only the majority owner could, and obviously he’s not about to do that.
And that raises an interesting question, will Gretzky get along with his new management team?
Suppose the new general manager decides at some point during the season that his team needs a new head coach. How do you go about telling one of your bosses, who’s also working for you, that he needs to go?
A change in management for the Coyotes was never in doubt and something that had to be done, but this team also needs a more experienced head coach, and that simply wasn’t addressed because of Gretzky’s ownership status.
Until that problem is sufficiently addressed, new management may not be enough to fully right the Coyotes sinking ship.
Ten games into the 2006-07 season, the Coyotes have only two wins on the season. During that period the club was dead last in the Western Conference and only the Philadelphia Flyers sport a worse record.
They’ve scored the third fewest goals (19) yet lead the league in goals-against with a whopping 44.
Shane Doan, Ladislav Nagy and Mike Comrie are the team’s best forwards but they’ve struggled to score. They lost center Steve Reinprecht and promising blueliner Keith Ballard to injury.
UFA acquisition Ed Jovanovski has been underwhelming as a Coyotes thus far, but at least he’s made some offensive contributions and isn’t a minus player. Veteran forward Owen Nolan and Jeremy Roenick are looking their age, struggling to keep pace with the faster game.
Goaltender Curtis Joseph has received little help from his defense corps, but he too is showing signs of age. Backup Mike Morrison, meanwhile, is doing very little to stick with the club beyond mid-season with his current play.
Speculation is rampant that management may swing a big trade to shake up the roster, but there’s a much easier solution, one that doesn’t need the moving of players to possibly turn around the fortunes of the Desert Dawgs.
Head coach Wayne Gretzky must step down in favor of Ken Hitchcock.
That move might not make the Coyotes a playoff contender this season, but it could go a long way toward righting a sinking ship and pointing it in the right direction.
Gretzky was unquestionably the greatest offensive player in NHL history, but he’s shown little to prove he can translate what made him a great player into being a great coach.
He’s in good company. Few superstar hockey players can make the leap to successful head coach when their playing days are done.
Gretzky’s a proud, competitive man who doesn’t want to admit defeat when it’s staring him in the face, but he should also know that his team needs a lift, the kind he cannot provide them as a head coach.
Gretzky knows Hitchcock from their time together on Canada’s Men’s hockey team in 2002 and 2006. He also knows Hitchcock’s pedigree, as the type of no-nonsense coach who has succeeded at every level he’s coached at.
If the Coyotes were in every game they’d played this season despite their current record, if every loss had been by the narrowest of margins, the case could be made for Gretzky to stay on, to give him a chance to bring this club along into a possible winner.
But that hasn’t been the case. The Coyotes needs an experienced bench boss, one who garners respect, who knows how to win. There is some very good talent on this year’s Coyotes team, but rather than surrendering the season and casting them aside, it would be best to see what this club can do with a strong hand at the helm.
Gretzky knows this. He has to know it. He has to know that each day that passes without doing the right thing could result in another club snapping up Hitchcock.
That would be another golden opportunity lost for a franchise that has seen many such lost opportunities since moving to Phoenix.
I'm Lyle Richardson, also known as Spector, Foxsports.com 's "Prince of Pucks".,which is based on the fact I live in Prince Edward Island, Canada and I couldn't think of a better byline. I've been an NHL hockey commentator since 1998 on my website, Spector's Hockey, and I'm a contributing writer for Foxsports.com , The Hockey News and Eishockey News. I'm also a regular on The Faceoff Hockey Show and a frequent guest on "The Late Crew" on The Team 1200 Ottawa.
