Hobey Baker Memorial Award
The Hobey Baker Memorial Award is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) ice hockey trophy . It is awarded annually to the best male college ice hockey player in the United States .
Numerous criteria are used for the award, including the strength of character on and off the ice, outstanding skills in all areas of the game, ability to work in a team, but also the academic performance of the player. In addition, every player must complete full-time studies and play at least half of his team's season games.
The award was named after the former American ice hockey player Hobart "Hobey" Baker (1892-1918), who was one of the first members of the Hockey Hall of Fame . It was awarded for the first time in 1981, and the first prize was Neal Broten from the University of Minnesota . The Hobey Baker Memorial Award is now considered the most important individual award for a player in college ice hockey.
The corresponding award for female players is called the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award .
Trophy design
Made from a bronze alloy with a plexiglass base, the trophy is 16 inches tall and weighs 40 pounds . It shows an ice hockey player in motion and was made by artist Bill Mack, who had previously created a sculpture for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame . The model was the Olympic champion and NHL player Steve Christoff , who had made his college career at the University of Minnesota . More than 50 different postures were analyzed before production. The annual winner and their school each receive a copy of the trophy.
History and award
The idea of creating an award for the best player in college ice hockey was first voiced in February 1978 by Chuck Bard, President of the Decathlon Athletic Club from Bloomington , Minnesota . It was based on the John R. Wooden Award , which was presented to the best player of the season in college basketball for the first time last year . In order to concretise the plans, Bard then founded a committee initially consisting of nine members, including Walter Bush , the then president of the Minnesota North Stars from the National Hockey League .
In 1980, Bard, Bush and the President of the United States Hockey Hall of Fame , Roger Godin, selected four American ice hockey legends Moose Goheen , Frank Brimsek , John Mariucci and Hobey Baker as possible namesake for the new trophy. The decision was ultimately unanimous in favor of Hobey Baker, although he was the only candidate not from Minnesota. Upon completion of the trophy and the initial vote, the first trophy winner, Neal Broten of the University of Minnesota , was announced on March 20, 1981 . The keynote address at the banquet was made by Gordie Howe .
The Hobey Baker Memorial Awards will be presented in three rounds. First, the head coaches of all NCAA Division I teams select what they consider to be the top three players in their league and nationwide. Based on these results and an online vote on the award's website, the top ten players will be announced as finalists . In the first few years, all coaches from Divisions I, II and III were allowed to participate, so that the finalists included an unusually large number of players from the lower divisions. The voting system was then adjusted.
The Hobey Baker Memorial Award Selection Committee then selects the winner of the trophy for the current season from the field of ten finalists . When the award was introduced, the committee consisted of 13, currently 27 representatives from the media, coaches, referees and NHL scouts . Since neither the voting results nor the exact ranking of the finalists are published, only the winners and runners-up of the voting were known until 2001. Since 2002, the field of finalists has been reduced from ten to three players about a week before the winner is announced as part of the Hobey has trick .
Hobey Baker Memorial Award winner
Since the trophy was introduced in 1981, a total of 40 players have been awarded. None of the winners managed to win the award multiple times. So far, the award winners have come from 18 different universities.
Abbreviations: Nat = nationality, Pos = position, C = center, LW = left winger, RW = right winger, D = defender, G = goalkeeper
Ranking lists and statistics
About three-quarters of the previous winners of the Hobey Baker Memorial Awards come from the United States ; a Canadian has won the trophy nine times, most recently Cale Makar in 2019. So far, only one European player, Peter Sejna from Colorado College , has been the best college player to be awarded. This roughly corresponds to the current (2018/19 season) distribution of origin in Division I of the NCAA, with around 67 percent of the players being US Americans, 29 percent Canadians and four percent Europeans. However, the proportion of Canadian players was still significantly higher until at least the 1980s.
Most often, the trophy was given to center forward , so-called center. Overall, over three quarters of the winning players played in the forward position. In the 1990s, only attacking players were honored with the award. In addition, eight defenders and two goalkeepers were successful. Most of the players were active in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA), which has so far provided 16 winners, including all winners between 2002 and 2007. They are followed by Conference Hockey East with eleven wins and the now-defunct Central Collegiate Hockey Association , the seven excellent Player posed. The majority of the winners were in their fourth and final year of college, the senior year . In addition, six players each in their second and third year and two freshmen , Paul Kariya (1993) and Jack Eichel (2015) , won the trophy.
Kariya, Eichel, and Makar are also the only Hobey Baker Memorial Awards winners selected in the first round of the NHL Entry Draft . Overall, the winners were more of a two-thirds franchise of the National Hockey League drafted; In contrast, only 42 percent of current NHL players who had embarked on a college career found their way into the NHL via the draft (as of 2013/14). 34 of the 40 winners played at least one game in the NHL.
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Finalists
Every year ten finalists are named for the Hobey Baker Memorial Award. So far, no player has been able to be nominated for the award in all four college years. Six players were each three times among the finalists, of which only Brendan Morrison and Chris Drury managed to win the trophy.
| Surname | Item | school | Years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nelson Emerson | RW | Bowling Green State University | 1988, 1989, 1990 |
| Greg Johnson | C. | University of North Dakota | 1991, 1992, 1993 |
| Brendan Morrison | C. | University of Michigan | 1995, 1996, 1997 |
| Martin St. Louis | RW | University of Vermont | 1995, 1996, 1997 |
| Chris Drury | C. | Boston University | 1996, 1997, 1998 |
| Brian Gionta | RW | Boston College | 1999, 2000, 2001 |
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Nominating and Selection Criteria ( Memento January 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), Hobey Baker Memorial Award, accessed January 7, 2016
- ↑ a b Hobey Baker Award , USA Today , April 18, 2001. Retrieved January 7, 2016
- ↑ Making of the Trophy ( Memento of January 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), Hobey Baker Memorial Award, accessed January 7, 2016
- ^ A b c History of the Hobey Baker Award ( January 7, 2016 memento in the Internet Archive ), Hobey Baker Memorial Award, accessed January 7, 2016
- ↑ The Hobey Baker Memorial Award ( Memento of the original from January 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Hockey East , 2015, accessed on January 7, 2016 (PDF; 828 kB)
- ^ NCAA DI , eliteprospects.com , accessed January 9, 2016
- ↑ John McGourty: Canadian prospects like NCAA option better than CHL , NHL.com, June 17, 2009. Retrieved on January 9, 2016
- ^ Infographic: NCAA in the NHL , College Hockey Inc., accessed January 9, 2016
