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In Hainsight: Renaming the Selke? |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
Don’t get me wrong, Patrice Bergeron is an absolute class act, a wonderful hockey player and an even better leader. He’s had a fantastic career and the way he mastered the art of being a defensive forward while still putting up points deserves to be recognized, but not by renaming the Frank J. Selke the Bergeron trophy. Granted, the Bruins center claimed the award six times over the course of his 20-year career, but that’s no reason to name the award after him.
Bobby Orr won the James Norris trophy eight times in a row, but the name of the trophy wasn’t changed. Somehow though the essence of the award went from being the best defenseman overall to being the best offensive defenseman. The fact that someone like Shea Weber has never won a Norris while Erik Karlsson has won it three times makes very little sense. Sure, Karlsson has racked up 761 points in 920 career games, but his defensive game leaves a lot to be desired.
Patrick Roy won the Conn Smythe trophy more times than anyone else claiming the award three times and he’s the only one who’s won it with two different teams, but the name of the trophy wasn’t change and lord knows how valuable Roy was to his teams in their conquest of the Stanley Cup.
As for the Hart trophy, the Great One, Wayne Gretzky captured it nine times and is often referred to as the best player to ever play the game, but there’s no trophy named after him in the NHL. The league has, however, retired number 99 league-wide and deservedly so.
As valuable as Bergeron was to the Bruins both on and off the ice, he falls short of deserving to have a trophy renamed after him. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that he will be a first ballot hall of famer though, and if I was part of the Bruins organization his jersey would be retired this upcoming season for their centennial, something tells me that will be done even without my input though.
In short, even though Bergeron has had a great career, no trophy needs to be renamed, if the league wants to change something with it’s awards though, they could introduce a new trophy for the best offensive defenseman and keep the Norris for the best overall defenseman.
I have nothing but respect and admiration for the Bruins captain though and growing up a Habs fan, I hated the Bruins, but it was hard to hate them completely with such a classy player on board. Now that he’s called it a career, I bet there are plenty of Canadiens’ fans league wide who will gladly go back to 100% hating the Bruins.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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