Last night was the annual embarrassment that is the NHL Awards show - which I didn't watch because award shows are lame. Not lame enough to not write about, but pretty lame.
The NHL is clueless when it comes to who should host and appear at these things and the awards are non-sense and the whole thing is just not for me. Based on my past viewing experiences which included Chaka Khan in 2009 (which is almost impossible to believe) and Def Leppard just 300 years after they were relevant and my general 'too cool for school but still talks non stop about it' attitude towards anything I pretend not to like.
So that being said, here is my review of the NHL Awards. Personally, I prefer The Milbies, but the NHL Awards still gets my lowest ever rating - seven thumbs up.
After having their offers to host turned down by William Hung, Jason Priestley and Vanilla Ice's brother, Carl Ice, the NHL turned to Will Arnett to host the awards last night. I suppose it was a good choice since he was mostly famous in 2006, and that makes him the most contemporarily relevant host in the Awards Show history.
The band was someone called X Ambassador.
I had never heard of them before, so I pulled up one of their songs on Youtube. I won't inflict it on you here either - it is literally the musical equivalent of Ebola. And as a fully certified English Major and self-proclaimed musical expert, I assure you I am using the word 'literally' in it's classic context.....you know, the one where it literally doesn't mean figuratively.
Anyways, nerd jokes aside, that music sounds like what I assume it would sound like if Dave Grohl got together with the band Hedly and decided to cover a deep cut out of the Hanson songbook.
So it is basically the exact sound of the NHL awards come to life.
If the colour beige could come to life and "play" a guitar, it might sound somewhat like what I might have heard, had I bothered to tune in and watch the show.
I had to listen to this four times just to get the taste out of my ears:
So, now that I have just totally roasted the NHL Awards Show - take that corporate America ! - let's get onto the actual awards, one or two of which might have actually gone to the right player.
Way to go Braden Holtby.
Your parents gave you the worst name possible, and misspelled it. You look like you dunked your head in a grease trap at Wendy's/are a roady for Band of Horses, but you're actually a famous millionaire. (Note: Way better than being a fat-cat millionaire).
Which is sweet. The only cool thing about the NHL Awards Show is that everyone who wins looks like they used to be one of my neighbors in Hawkestone Ontario, where I grew up. (Which is the plaid coat capital of the world, if you aren't digging the point of reference).
The actual awards were just stupid.
Instead of Connor McDavid winning the Calder, which he should have, considering the games he did play essentially showed he is the best player in the NHL, the award went to a guy who is older than Jaromir Jagr's dad and has seven years of professional hockey experience.
In a turn of events so shocking as to seem implausible, McDavid somehow came third in the voting for the Calder after Shayne Gostisbehere. The voters decided that not making your team for the first 19 games of the season is less bad than being injured - through no fault of your own - for about half the season.
If I was the kind of guy who got mad about inconsequential, minor inconveniences, this might send me over the edge. Luckily, I don't care at all and am just writing this because my mom won't unlock the basement door until I turn in my daily blog.
Next up the award for best player went to the NHL's favorite public relations nightmare Patrick Kane. All things considered, I would have voted for Crosby, but you can't really complain too much about this one, as he did lead the league in scoring a year after winning his third Stanley Cup.
More weird stuff:
- Don Maloney received a vote for GM of the year and finished tenth.
- Bruce Boudreau finished fourth in Jack Adams voting, even though he was fired and even though he should have won it.
- Several people left Erik Karlsson off their ballots and one insane person included a vote for Keith Seabrook.
- Also insane: Roman Josi being voted fifth by the same voters who don't think Erik Karlsson's 82 points warrant an award.
In the end, the (obviously) worst voting happened with the Norris Trophy. Drew Doughty won the award despite not even having the best stats for a defenseman on his team. Now, if you don't want to think Muzzin is superior to Doughty, that's fine with me as it seems to be a pretty prevalent opinion.
But there is no way that the difference between Doughty's defensive contributions and Karlsson's is equal to 32 points. To equal a 32 point difference Karlsson would have to be one of the worst defenders in hockey and Doughty the best.
It's a ridiculous proposition, and it's pretty weak that professional hockey writers can't be objective enough to give the award to the guy who objectively deserves it by about ten miles.
Anyways, it was a fun time. You can't argue that. At least I assume it was, I didn't watch it.
P.S Bergeron should just automatically win the Selke ever year.
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