Re-Naming the VHLM Awards, Part 2 Last week, we looked at the possibilities for renaming VHLM awards after VHL players who don't have VHL awards named after them for various reasons. As such, the Leeroy Jenkins, Alexander Chershenko, Daniel Braxton, and Benoit Devereux Trophies were proposed. Here's a look at the other five potential re-namings. Most Points: Phil Rafter Trophy Phil Rafter ended his career last season with 892 points, sitting prettily in fifth place in all-time scoring, behind only Scotty Campbell, Mike Szatkowski, Kevin Brooks, and Christian Stolzschweiger, all of whom have VHL awards already. Rafter eclipsed 100 points in six of his eight seasons, coming close with 92 and 85 in the two (his first and third) when he didn't. In his career year of 68 goals and 146 points in Season 32, Rafter put up one of the best single-season performances in recent history, while claiming his one top scorer award to make his case for this re-naming even stronger. The definite future Hall of Famer doesn't really have a rival for this award. His closest pursuers in career points are Lars Berger, Mikka Virkkunen, and career rival Alexander Chershenko, with Virkkunen having a VHL trophy already, Chershenko being pencilled in for playoff MVP, while Berger never actually led the league in scoring. The other option are those who won the Lemieux Trophy more than twice and don't have a trophy already named after them (Zach Arce, Jardy Bunclewirth, Tarik Saeijs) but considerably inferior career numbers and lack of clear favourite out of that trio make this a likely victory for Rafter. Most Goals: Too Close To Call Trophy If we could name several awards after one player, Rafter would be short-listed for top goal-scorer as well, being one of just four players in VHL history to eclipse 400 goals. However, if that was the case, we would have about five Scotty Campbell Trophies, so we have to look for second-best. At the moment that is Jarvis Baldwin, who narrowly (by one goal) edged out Kevin Brooks, the namesake of the VHL trophy, in the career list. Baldwin won the award once, in his last season, the only one in which he won any individual awards. That is why handing the trophy to Baldwin isn't a given as of now. Tukka Reikkinen might be seven career goals back of Baldwin, but more of his career points were goals. Reikkinen also won the award twice and his strong two-way game and breaking both the Vasteras and New York “curses” have caused him to generally be viewed as a greater forward than Baldwin. It would be devastating to omit either Baldwin or Reikkinen from this award re-naming and it's too close to call. The Baldwin-Reikkinen Trophy? Should we just wait until a greater goal-scorer comes along? Or alternatively, we could go back a generation to Lars Berger and Markus Strauss. Berger, though again never won the award, was just one goal back of Baldwin and six ahead of Reikkinen. Strauss, in the meantime, won the trophy twice and had he played an extra season at his 50-goal pace, would have also joined the 400-goal club. Most Assists: Japinder Singh Trophy To rename the former Mikita Trophy in Season 32, a league poll actually had to be conducted to choose between two equally deserving options in Alexander Beketov and Japinder Singh. Obviously, Beketov received the honour, but now is definitely the time to make amends and reward Singh, one of the greatest defencemen of all-time. The Mikita Trophy was actually the only individual award Singh won, though he was a great passer his whole career, finishing with 580 assists, just 59 off Scotty Campbell, which is the closest anyone's gotten to Campbell's career offensive numbers. Not only is he close to Campbell, but Singh also has a fair margin over Sterling Labatte who comes in third place, especially impressive considering the great Labatte had an extra season played. Singh's closest competition comes in the form of long-term teammates and his rivals David Walcott and James Bencharski (529 and 522 assists respectively). Both Walcott and Bencharski also won the awards once, Walcott doing so with a fairly remarkable 111 assists in his final season. This was still, however, less than Joey Kendrick's 112 in Season 6 and Patrick Bergqvist's single-season record of 114 in Season 20, though neither blue-liner was as impressive throughout their whole career. Thus, Singh's closest rival is probably David Henman, one of the few players to lead the league in assists twice. Henman had 494 assists during his career, in one less season than Singh, though it's unlikely he'd have made up the difference if he played an extra year in the VHL. Top Two-Way Forward: David Smalling Trophy Plus, it's not like David needs any more awards! The David Knight Trophy already exists for the VHL's top executive and there is a very obvious choice for the top two-way forward of all-time who goes by the name of David Smalling. Smalling won a record-breaking fifth Scott Boulet Trophy in his final season last year, overtaking the great Leeroy Jenkins and Scott Boulet himself. Smalling also set the all-time hits record with 2,692, and although he may still be overtaken by Miles Larsson, that's a ridiculously great achievement. Scott Boulet has his own trophy, Leeroy Jenkins is already the write-in for VHLM MVP, and “mere” three-time winners like J.D. Stormwall, Matt Bailey, and Lars Berger might have been first-ballot Hall of Famers but are really no threat to Smalling. There's actually a strong case that can be made for the Boulet Trophy itself to be renamed after Smalling so rest assured, this was probably the easiest choice of the series. Top Executive: Jason Glasser Trophy Finally, we arrive at the Ken Holland Trophy, the youngest VHLM trophy, awarded to the top executive (i.e. General Manager) since Season 15. For this award, there are really two options, both linked to the VHLM more closely than any of the players mentioned for the eight previous awards. One is Cam Fowler, who won a VHLM record four Ken Holland Trophies over the longest GM tenure in the minor league's history. Fowler did a great job with the the Saskatoon Wild, leading them to three Founder's Cups, including the second back-to-back in VHLM history, but there is one blemish on his resume: a lack of VHL GM experience, which would go against the general theme of these proposed re-naming. Nonetheless, Fowler would still be the favoured option nine times out of ten, if there wasn't a candidate with both VHL and VHLM GM success. In a comparatively short six-season GM tenure with the Ottawa Ice Dogs, Jason Glasser won two Founder's Cups and two Ken Holland Trophies, the only GM outside of Fowler to win multiple. After the Ottawa stint, Glasser moved on to managing the Calgary Wranglers, a position he holds to this day, and has led them to a Continental Cup, two finals appearances, and seven playoff appearances in the past eight seasons, winning a VHL record three Top GM honours along the way (the last one in Season 34 was co-won with Mitch Higgins). It really is difficult to make a case for someone else.
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