VHL Awards - Theme Week

[Eynhallow 412]

VHL Awards : Theme Week

 

I think I may have delivered a suggestion about revitalizing the Mikka Virkkunen Trophy some time in the past.  Originally, I found it odd that there wasn’t a Lady Byng Trophy or it’s VHL equivalent.  But, on looking a bit harder, I found The Mikka Virkkunen which had been retired after Season 58.  I could not determine why this happened.  Perhaps some of our more senior members would be able to shed some light on this.  My thinking, though, was that it was too hard to define the criteria for winning the trophy.  There wasn’t an easy quantitative measure as there is with the Kevin Brooks Trophy, for example.  From what I can gather from the Virkkunen winners, it seems that the criteria were very few penalty minutes, few hits and yet a point producer.  Well, OK.  But doesn’t that sort of sound like the Pansy Trophy, or as I suggested before, maybe the Madonna Trophy.  I , for one, am not so sure that I would want/like to be the Madonna of the league though.

So, if this trophy, or another iteration of it, were to be rejuvenated my suggestion would be that the GM, AGM or designate would select one player from each of their respective rosters and submit that name to a trophy selection committee to decide on the eventual winner.  The criteria would have to be varied.  The player selected must have a meaningful point contribution, have a relatively low number of penalty minutes and, yet, have a significant number of hits.  That means that the player is aggressive and, yet, his hits are generally clean.   To give you an example of such a player, let’s take a look at the top 10 players (points) from the Riga Reign for Season 78.

 

Player Name	GP	G	A	P	+/-	PIM	HIT	SHT%	SB	GW
(75) C - Cabe McJake	72	39	48	87	-3	61	111	10.32%	29	7
(75) D - Linus Zetterstrom	72	16	70	86	0	20	25	9.04%	176	1
(75) RW - Justin Lose	72	37	45	82	-7	17	67	8.22%	27	6
(75) C - Isau DaMoose	72	41	40	81	-10	111	266	9.88%	22	6
(75) RW - Artair McCloud	72	30	36	66	-11	16	42	6.8%	42	4
(74) D - Matt thunder	72	8	52	60	-17	189	218	3.98%	137	1
(77) D - Jan Hlozek	72	14	36	50	-8	26	73	8.54%	115	2
(75) LW - Addison McLaren	39	14	20	34	-6	78	181	8.33%	22	1
(73) D - Han Jae Kuk	39	5	28	33	-7	24	43	6.25%	80	0
(73) RW - Oh Sens	33	12	11	23	6	43	35	9.68%	8	1

 

In my model, Justin Lose would be the nominee for the Riga Reign.  He has 82 points, only 17 minutes in penalties and still managed 67 hits.  My player, Isau DaMoose, although very close in terms of point production would not be considered because of his goon-like tactics with 266 hits and 111 minutes spent in the box (contemplating his sins, no doubt !).

In addition, there also should be some kind of recommendation by whoever submits the players name which would indicate the players activity level and contributions to the team in ways that cannot be quantitatively measured.  With this dimension, I think, one would get an overall feeling for a player that is the most sportsmanlike both on the stats sheet and in the locker room.

Now, I realize that determining a winner for this award would be very difficult and open to controversy due to its subjective nature and how well the player is written up for the panel to judge, but, in my opinion, it would be a worthwhile effort and give some recognition to those builds that are truly team and league oriented.

Thanks for reading my wee suggestion.  As always, one hopes that these things are taken, at least partially, seriously, and if not, hopefully it will provoke a bit of thought.

 

Word Count 679

Claiming Week of Aug. 29 due to ongoing multi-week claim