#defense (Photo credit: Bruce Bennett)
The Frank J. Selke Trophy is given to the best defensive forward in hockey, as voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association. It was won this year by Jonathan Toews, who narrowly beat out Patrice Bergeron. We don’t care about that though, because the results get hilarious further down. This is why I’ve never trusted democracy.
A notable example: 45th place finisher Eric Fehr, who received one fifth place vote, though that was probably just Greg Wyshynski screwing with all of us. Perhaps this RMNB post made an indelible impact.
In Fehr’s defense (ba-dum ching!), he was super awesome this year and there were some other, well, bad choices made by some members. The awards voting is less now about honoring the players and more about questioning who the PHWA is letting into their membership.
Shane Doan didn’t just get a vote for the Lady Byng. HE GOT A FIRST PLACE VOTE. (Fess up, PHWA member.)
— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) June 14, 2013
And somehow, on the same team, Eric Staal got significantly more Selke votes than Jordan Staal. — Corey Pronman (@coreypronman) June 14, 2013
Tyler Seguin and Nazem Kadri each got a fourth-place Selke vote from someone.
— Jason Brough (@JasonPHT) June 14, 2013
Selke voting is basically the PHWA saying “And now we’re going to make an absurd public spectacle of ourselves.”
— mc79hockey (@mc79hockey) June 14, 2013
In other voting news, Adam Oates finished eight in the running for the Jack Adams in the most vile international outrage this side of Damascus. Seriously, he should’ve won that thing.
Meanwhile, George McPhee was 10th in general manager of the year voting and Nick Backstrom inched past fellow Swede Henrik Sedin for the coveted 23rd spot in the Selke vote, while also finishing 27th for the Lady Byng. The big news, however, will come tomorrow when the winners of the Hart, Vezina, Norris, Calder, and Lindsay trophies are announced before game two. Alex Ovechkin‘s up for two of those, with the Rocket Richard Trophy already in hand.
Alex Ovechkin got robbed for the Lady Byng. Every night he graciously chose not to end the careers of every NHL player.
— RMNB (@russianmachine) June 14, 2013
Additional reporting by Ian Oland.
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