It’s the right time to rename the Conn Smythe Trophy
TORONTO — After watching Herb Carnegie play, Conn Smythe apparently offered $10,000 to anyone who could turn Carnegie’s skin colour to white.
He was being facetious, of course. He was also being racist.
Carnegie was more than good enough to play in the National Hockey League in the late 1940s, early ’50s, years before Willie O’Ree. The Maple Leafs and the rest of the NHL wouldn’t sign him.
He never got the chance to play at the highest level because he was Black.
The trophy that goes to the most valuable player in the Stanley Cup playoffs is named for Smythe. Named for a racist. It shouldn’t be any more.
This is as powerful a time as any for the National Hockey League to take a good look at the names on all of its trophies and determine the worthiness of each of them.
But the best place to start is with the Conn Smythe, especially at a time when the NHL is preaching inclusiveness and diversity.
Why not name the playoff MVP after Carnegie’s old teammate with the Quebec Aces, Jean Beliveau? He was the first recipient of the Smythe award in 1965. No one has ever represented hockey better than Beliveau did.
THIS AND THAT
Another trophy name to consider changing: The James Norris Trophy, for best defenceman. Norris used to run the Detroit Red Wings, had majority ownership of the New York Rangers and lent money to the Boston Bruins all at the same time in the sixteam NHL. The ‘N’ in NHL in those days stood for Norris. This one is an easy change if you’d like. The best defenceman award should be named for the best defenceman ever, Bobby Orr. Simple, really … So many of the people screaming about Auston Matthews’ privacy being violated by my report of him testing positive for COVID-19 were remarkably silent just a few days earlier when reports of Ezekiel Elliott’s positive COVID test came out. That story was broken by the NFL Network. And almost immediately, it became part of daily conversation on ESPN … Here in hockey-crazed Canada, the same networks and news outlets that have turned a blind eye to the Matthews story, as if it didn’t happen, not even mentioning it on television, reported Elliott’s situation without delay. So, is Matthews’ privacy more important or more valuable than Elliott’s? Or has the hockey culture gone silent once again? … Frederik Andersen, for those interested, is home and safe in California and will be in Toronto shortly to begin training with the Maple Leafs. He was with Matthews for most of the past few months in Arizona … Some have compared the Buffalo Sabres’ purge of more than 20 hockey employees to the Brendan Shahanan housecleaning of 2015 in Toronto that included the firing of Dave Nonis, Dave Poulin and Claude Loiselle. Here’s the difference, though: Shanahan took an entire year to evaluate the individuals who worked for him and with him. At the end of the year, he made major significant changes. He moved some people around. Sabres president Kim Pegula fired general manager Jason Botterill three weeks after giving him a vote of confidence and replaced him with Kevyn Adams. Adams called at least one scout and probably more and basically said: ‘I don’t know you, but you’re fired.” Their purge was hardly methodical.
HEAR AND THERE
Jarome Iginla will make history when he is named to the Hockey Hall of Fame in a few days’ time. He will become the first Black male skater (non-goalie) in hockey history to be elected in the player category. He will head up the class of 2020, which should include Marian Hossa. After that, it’s guessing time for the other two spots. Maybe Alex Mogilny. Maybe Tom Barrasso. Maybe Mike Vernon. Maybe the long overdue Doug Wilson. Maybe Theo Fleury or Jeremy Roenick …This is where statistics lie. Dave Andreychuk, Hall of Famer, scored 640 NHL goals. Dino
Ciccarelli, Hall of Famer, scored 608 goals. Patrik Elias, with 408 goals, was a better player year-in, year-out, than either Andreychuk or Ciccarelli. He’d be in my Hall of Fame ahead of a lot of people already there. … Baseball is giving me a headache. Too many statements. Too many threats. Too much backand-forth nonsense. Play or don’t play. I can’t listen to this anymore … Weird rule on the apparent bubble return of the NBA: Sweaty players can crash into each other on the court during the game. But off the court, after the game, no doubles ping-pong will be allowed. Singles ping-pong, yes. No doubles though … Among the Buffalo casualties, former Leafs good guy Mike Komisarek … The class-action lawsuit alleging that teenagers “were sexually and physically assaulted, hazed and otherwise abused while away from home and playing for CHL teams” is long overdue. The culture of junior hockey must change. And we’ve been saying that for years. My book, “The Lost Dream” , details some of the abuses in junior hockey, and other abuses of children. The stories, teamto-team, year after year, are offensive. I just wish someone other than Daniel Carcillo, who used to wear a robe with a swastika on it, was fronting this. Dave Branch’s reign as CHL president is not exactly ending in glory.
SCENE AND HEARD
If and when the CFL comes back, word is it will be reducing the numbers of coaches for each team a year from now from 11 to nine. And there’s a whole lot of internal screaming about that. Coaches like nothing better than having other coaches around, lots of them. For the record, the best CFL team ever, the dominant Edmonton Eskimos of the ’80s, five-time champions, had a five-man staff. Head coach Hugh Campbell and assistants Don Matthews, Cal Murphy, Dan Daniel and Joe Faragalli. Three of the four assistants went on become successful head coaches. A nine-man staff would have seemed excessive back then … Baseball has no games scheduled and Russell Martin, at 37, has no signed contract with any bigleague team … If baseball is back and there are no minor leagues, expect kid pitching stud Nate Pearson to be on the Blue Jays taxi squad as he readies himself for his bigleague debut. They don’t want to rush him, even under these terrible circumstances of some kind of shortened season.
“This is as powerful a time as any for the National Hockey League to take a good look at the names on all of its trophies and determine the worthiness of each of them.”