The First Half Bizarro NHL Awards
Jun 27, 2014; Philadelphia, PA, USA; A general view of various NHL trophies on display before the first round of the 2014 NHL Draft at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
As the season inches closer to the All-Star break, we here at Too Many Men on the Site thought it would be a good time to hand out some NHL awards. Every team has played more than half their games, so by now we have a pretty good handle on the season. While there has been plenty of great stories from successful teams and players, we’re here to focus on the not-so-good players and teams who have laced up the skates this season.
So over the next few pages you’ll be treated to our Bizarro NHL Awards as we pay homage to some of our lesser known awards and forgotten players. It’s an ugly job, but they figure the man who brought you the DiPietro Awards should be able to handle it.
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For those new to the Bizarro NHL Awards, here are the categories (note: I know all of these guys are better players than me…seriously, you don’t need to tell me. Making the NHL is a great accomplishment, so try not to take it too personal).
- The Rick Bowness Award: given to the worst coaching performance on the season in honor of the man who posted a 123-289-48-3 record in parts of nine seasons behind the bench for five teams. He did make one playoff appearance, but as someone who watched his coaching prowess nightly, there’s no other explanation other than the team made the playoffs in spite of him.
- The Mike Milbury Award: given to the team executive who built the worst team money could buy. “Mad Mike” would have swept this award had it been around in the 1990’s. Alas, we’ve named it after him instead. Not a bad consolation prize.
- The Tommy Soderstrom Award: given to the league’s worst goalie. Sure, people can quibble that there were worse goalies (and there probably were), but not all of them posted a 19-34-9 record with a .886 save percentage and 3.61 goals against average for my favorite team. The mid-1990’s was not fun for an Islander fan.
- The Rumun Ndur Award: given to the league’s least valuable defenseman. Sure, he only played 69 NHL games. But boy, did he suck for that those games. If it makes you feel any better, he wasn’t really any good in any other league he played in either. So he kinda sucked across the board. At least he was consistent.
- The Mitch Fritz Award: the highest (lowest?) accolade we can hand out for general ineptitude this season. This award honors the man who in 20 career games had no points, 42 penalty minutes, was a minus four, and had a whopping two shots on goal. He was a big dude (6’8”) and that’s really the only positive I have about Mitch Fritz who played his entire NHL career with the immortal 2008/09 Islanders. Man, the late-2000’s was not fun for an Islander fan.
So without further hesitation, I present the Bizarro NHL Awards:
Next: Worst Coaching Job?