Naming the PWHL Awards

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Great minds think alike, and so when two TIG staff members each had the idea to name the PWHL’s awards, they teamed up! Read on to see what Meredith and Geremy came up with.

Meredith’s Trophy Name Picks

This is a fun little thought exercise. Once the league expands enough I’d like to see an Isobel Conference and a Clarkson Conference, named for the NWHL/PHF and CWHL championship trophies respectively. The PWHL would do well to honor both of the leagues that came before it in North America over the past decade, regardless of how executives and certain influential North American national team players feel about it. To ignore history – especially such recent history – is disrespectful to those who put their blood, sweat, and tears into pro women’s hockey. With that in mind, I wanted my trophy names to span both the years and the world.

Angela James Award for Most Regular Season Goals

Angela James is a hockey icon. Not ‘women’s hockey’; hockey, period. Not only is she the first woman inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, she’s also the first openly queer person to be inducted.

Throughout her career she was a ferocious goal scorer; across her three years time at Seneca College she scored 80 goals in 32 games, including 50 goals in 14 games during her last season. She was part of the inaugural Canadian team at the first-ever Women’s World Championship in 1990, scoring 11 goals in five games in Ottawa to take gold on home ice. She went on to win World Championship gold three more times.

James’ controversial omission from the 1998 Olympic team could very well have cost Canada the gold medal. Geremy has a deeper dive into her career in his section, but in addition to the numbers and the history made, I think it’s important to note that James achieved everything she did as a chronically ill LGBTQIA+ woman of color. She battled her entire career against myriad forms of discrimination and still managed to leave an incredible legacy. The sport wouldn’t be what it is without her.

Cammi Granato Award for Regular Season MVP

Longtime Team USA Captain Cammi Granato is an American legend. She played in every single World Championship from the tournament’s inception in 1990 up to 2005, winning one gold medal and eight silvers. She was part of the team that made history by taking home the first-ever women’s hockey Olympic gold medal in 1998. In her 205 international games she scored 343 points (186 goals, 157 assists) and became the team’s all-time top scorer. She was the first woman inducted into the USA Hockey Hall of Fame, and, along with Angela James and Geraldine Heaney, one of the first women inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2008.

There are very few things that make me feel patriotic as an American. Hell, I never cheer for Team USA on the international stage. This photo, though?

I think a bald eagle just shed a proud tear.

Maria Rooth Award for Most Regular Season Points

Once in a blue moon, a generational talent comes along and racks up points like they’re using a cheat code. Sweden’s Maria Rooth is one of those players. While at the University of Minnesota-Duluth she scored a staggering 232 points (119 goals, 113 assists) in 124 games, averaging 1.87 points a game and winning three consecutive NCAA championships. In 54 SDHL games with AIK, she notched 45 goals and 52 assists for 97 points. Just bananas.

Rooth is the first Swedish player of any gender to reach the 100-goal international benchmark, and her two goals at the 2006 Olympic semifinal against the United States carried Sweden through 60 minutes of regulation play. Rooth struck again in overtime to send Sweden to the gold medal game. She retired in 2010 with an Olympic silver, an Olympic bronze, two World Championship bronze medals, three HockeyEttan titles, and one SDHL championship, among a handful of individual honors.

Jenni Hiirikoski Award for Defender of the Year

“But Meredith! She’s not retired yet!”

I don’t care.

“But she-“

Nope. Not listening.

If the Naisten Liiga can name an award after Noora Räty before she retired, I can do the same with Hiirikoski. Team Finland’s captain practically owns the IIHF World Championship Best Defender Award with a record seven wins. She’s a legend at her position and should be a first-ballot Hall of Famer as soon as she’s eligible. She won’t be, unless the HHOF gets its head out of its ass regarding women, but she should be.

Caroline Ouellette Award for Playoff MVP

Picking just one award to name after Ouellette is difficult when she’s had such a glittering career highlighted by four consecutive Olympic gold medals, six World Championship titles, six World Championship silver medals, four CWHL Clarkson Cups, and one NCAA championship. Her accolades culminated in a well-deserved Hockey Hall Of Fame induction in June 2023.

However, whenever I think of Caro Ouellette, my mind inevitably goes to the 2017 CWHL playoffs where she helped Les Canadiennes de Montréal win the Clarkson Cup alongside wife Julie Chu while pregnant with their daughter Liv. Call me sentimental, it’s fine.

Guo Hong Award for Goalie of the Year

Nicknamed “The Great Wall of China,” Guo is arguably the finest hockey player of any gender to ever come out of China. She backstopped the team at two Olympics and six World Championships, taking them to fourth-place finishes at the 1998 inaugural women’s Olympic hockey tournament in Nagano at the 1997 Worlds in Kitchener the year before.

As I wrote back in 2018, “it was not uncommon for her to face upwards of 50 shots while tending the goal for China. At the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, Hong led the tournament in both saves and shots against. She managed to post a .888 save percentage despite seeing 206 shots in just five games.” Her enduring legacy and contributions to Chinese hockey earn her this dedication.

Jack Brodt Award for Coach of the Year

Longtime Minnesota Whitecaps head coach Jack Brodt is one of the driving factors in developing Minnesota into a women’s hockey hotbed. He spent 18 years coaching the Whitecaps on a shoestring budget as well as working behind the scenes to shepherd the team through multiple leagues. Under his tenure, the Whitecaps became the only team to win both a Clarkson Cup and an Isobel Cup.

Browne-Platt Trailblazer Award

Named for transgender hockey icons Harrison Browne and Jessica Platt, this award is designed to celebrate individuals who work to challenge hockey culture through activism, advocacy, and visibility. Browne became the first openly transgender athlete in professional team sports when he came out in 2016 as a member of the NWHL’s Buffalo Beauts, while Platt came out as the CWHL’s only openly transgender player in 2018 while she was playing for the Toronto Furies.

I see this award being decided by media vote, so that if a player is getting a little too progressive for the league’s taste, they can still win.

Geremy’s Trophy Name Picks

The road to the PWHL has not been a smooth one to put it lightly. This isn’t just talking about the last 12 months with the folding of the PHF where the league was negotiating with the future owners of the PWHL (Mark Walters Group/Billie Jean King Enterprises) while simultaneously signing players to contracts. Women’s hockey has a longer history than it is often given credit for.

Few know about how popular women’s hockey was during World War I, as it showed how profitable the women’s game was. Or how Lady Isobel Gathorne-Hardy, daughter of the well-known Lord Stanley, shared her father’s passion for the game and was the spark that led to women’s hockey getting its start. The PWHL doesn’t exist without countless people keeping the sport alive until proper funding could be found to support a true home for the players in the sport. If the PWHL truly wants to be the last women’s league created for the most elite in the sport, they should be taking this opportunity to honour those who have come before to make all of this possible.

Regular Season Top Scorer: Albertine “l’etoile des etoiles” Lapensée Trophy

Before there was Hayley Wickenheiser, Nela Lopušanová, Cammi Granato, etc. the first women’s hockey player to be a media sensation and be a dominating force on the ice was Albertine Lapensée. For those who don’t know about Lapensée she played for the Cornwall Victorias from 1916-1917 in what was known as the Eastern Ladies’ Hockey League. The league exploded into prominence especially in central Canada and the northeastern United States. While it was thought the best teams would be in Ottawa and Montreal, two of the largest population centers, the best team was from the small town in Cornwall. The Victorias from 1916-1917 had a record of 45 wins and one tie. They never lost.

From newspaper records it’s been put together that the Victorias scored 228 and only allowed 29. What makes Lapensée so special is she scored 150 of those 228 goals. That is not a typo. Lapensée, despite being 18, knew how popular the league was, how popular she was, and knew how much the owners were pocketing. So, she asked to be paid for playing and was promptly smeared in the media leading to her immediate retirement. Too many talented people who have played women’s hockey have experienced this, she was just the first.

Regular Season Most Valuable Player (voted by the PWHA): Hayley Wickenheiser Trophy

Hayley Wickenheiser is the Greatest of All Time and it’d feel weird to have this award named after anyone else. Her accomplishments are numerous and well known: Most Olympic All-Time Points (51), Most Olympic All-Time Goals (18), x4 Olympic Gold Medalist, x1 Olympic Silver Medalist, x7 World Championship Gold Medalist, x6 World Championship Silver Medalist, x2 Olympic MVP, x1 World Championship MVP, x2 Olympic All-Star, x7 World Championship All-Star, first woman ever to play in the third and second tier Finnish pro men’s hockey, Clarkson Cup champion, USports national championship, x2 Olympic Best Forward, and 2x World Championship Best Forward. What else is there to say about why Wickenheiser deserves to have her name on the MVP trophy? You’re not going to find a player with as long and as storied career as Wickenheiser.

Regular Season Most Valuable Player (voted by the PWHLPA): Cammi Granato Trophy

Among the players of the ’90s and early ’00s, the American to fear was Cammi Granato. She was the one tasked with going goal-for-goal with Hayley Wickenheiser – and Granato certainly held her own. At the WHC Granato has the fourth most points (78) but the second highest Points Per Game (1.81) when looking at hose who have played three or more tournaments. The only player ahead of her is fellow American Krissy Wendell-Pohl. In her two Olympic appearances, Granato had 18 points in 11 games for a 1.64 PPG, good for fourth all-time in Olympic history. She captained the USA to their first Olympic gold and their first Worlds gold. Her career was unfortunately cut short by not being named to the 2006 U.S. Olympic team, which caught many by surprise and left some wondering if her being cut led to the U.S. being bounced into the bronze medal game by Sweden. She’s one of the few women in the Hockey Hall of Fame because her case was too hard to ignore, and it’s still too hard to ignore as a trophy name.

Regular Season Highest Goal Scorer: Angela James Trophy

Imagine being so good at your sport that you get two trophies named after you – the first being the Angela James Bowl, which went to the CWHL’s highest point-getter, and now hypotethically for being the best goal scorer.

If you ever needed a goal delivered right into the net, Angela James was the one to call on. The modern game’s first power forward, James had an absolute knack for scoring. At Seneca College in what was then USports, James was always over a goal per game. This was especially true in her final season when she had 50 goals in 15 games. In the first ever Women’s World Hockey Championship, James scored 11 goals in five games, outscoring even Cammi Granato. James finished her WHC career with 20 goals in 22 games which is a fantastic feat. Wherever she played, James would score at a near goal-per-game rate or above it, which is why she’s perfect for this award.

Defender of the Year: Angela Ruggiero Trophy

Look, if Jenni Hiirikoski was retired, Defender of the Year for the PWHL would have her name on it. Maybe even we wait until she does retire to name the trophy after her. If we’re not waiting for Hiirikoski to retire, the next best choice is Angela Ruggiero.

The American defender was Jenni Hiirikoski before Hiirikoski came around. Ruggiero was named the Olympics’ Best Defender two of three times in Olympics she participated in, and named WHC Best Defender four of 10 times she was in the WHC. Also made the Olympic All-Star team all three times Ruggiero was there and was named to another four WHC All-Star teams. The only defender with a better resume is Jenni Hiirikoski: seven WHC Top Defender awards, two Olympic Top Defender awards, named to the WHC All-Star Team four times, and named to the Olympic All-Star Team three times.

There’s only one other retired defender that comes close to the type of accomplishments Ruggiero and Hiirikoski have put up, and it’s Canadian Geraldine Heaney. This one was a tough one, as there’s one active player that deserves to have a trophy named after them and two retired players. The edge goes to Ruggiero but definitely am open to either of the other options.

Defensive Forward of the Year: Julie Chu Trophy

This is the toughest one to pick out, and the one I’m more than happy to be told I’m wrong about. It’s tough to pick out the best defensive forward in the games history because it’s not really talked about. If you had to name the trophy in 5-10 years it’s probably named the Marie-Philip Poulin Trophy. If we’re not waiting that long, then my suggestion for this trophy name would be Julie Chu, a forward-turned-defender because she can handle the defensive aspects of the game and that’s forward-turned-defender on the U.S. national team, for the record. It’s not super rare you see a player in women’s hockey capable of playing both positions at a high level, but that’s what Chu did.

Rookie of the Year: Jenny Potter Trophy

This was an extremely tough one and another one of the trophy name ideas I’m open to being swayed another way on. Until that time, though, I think I’ve found the person this exemplifies in a big way: Jenny Potter. Her rookie seasons are pretty fantastic and every time she comes into a new situation, she generally rocks it.

She made the 1998 U.S. Olympic team while being in high school and scored six points in five games. The next year, in 1999, Potter made her Worlds debut, putting up 12 points in five games, and in her NCAA debut she had 71 points in 32 games earning a spot on the NCAA’s second All-American team. After graduating from the NCAA, Potter made her debut into the Western Women’s Hockey League with the Minnesota Whitecaps. In her first full season, Potter had 34 points in 20 games. Potter never backed down from a new situation and it showed in the results.

Coach of the Year: Pia Sterner Trophy

The story of Pia Sterner is incredible: trained under the legendary coach Anatoli Tarasov for eight months, was a European champion in karate, and was a world champion power lifter. Sterner even lived on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s property for four months after they’d met at a gym while training for a weightlifting event. At the age of 17, as a girl in Sweden, Sterner sent a letter to the Detroit Red Wings because she wanted to play in the NHL. With barely any women’s hockey in North America, let alone in Sweden, and men not wanting her on their teams or in their leagues, Sterner turned to coaching and excelled, which isn’t easy to do as a woman coaching men in the 1970s.

She was doing such a fantastic job that Tarasov talked to then-Philadelphia Flyers head coach Fred Shero in 1976, and the conversation must have gone well because Fred Shero offered Sterner the opportunity to be the first woman coach in the NHL – in the 70s, of all times! She ultimately said no, as she didn’t want to be separated from her partner Ulf Sterner (with whom she should be celebrating 37 years married sometime this year). Her coaching career didn’t die there, though, as she’d be in demand across the continent coaching men’s and women’s teams in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. With Denmark and Germany, she was instrumental in getting those women’s hockey programs off the ground even coaching Germany to a European Championship.

General Manager of the Year: Fran Rider Trophy

Women’s hockey as it is now, especially internationally, might not have come to fruition if not for the efforts from Fran Rider. In 1982, Rider was named President and CEO of the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association (OWHA) and from there worked tirelessly to grow the game of women’s hockey. Five years after being put in that position, Rider organized the first ever World Championship for women’s hockey in 1987 though it wasn’t sanctioned by the IIHF. It still served its purpose of providing a blueprint to the IIHF on how to put on an official tournament, which did happen three years later in 1990.

With women’s hockey officially a part of the IIHF, Rider and her fellow European colleagues took the games to the IOC (International Olympic Committee). While they didn’t get into the 1994 Olympics, women’s hockey made its debut in 1998 thanks in large part to Fran Rider.

Angela James went on the record in her Hockey Hall of Fame speech saying without Rider she wouldn’t be in the HHOF. Rider also has her hands in creating the Four Nations tournament and the Canadian U18 National Championship. Her resume is longer than I have room to write and her contributions to the game cannot be ignored any longer.

Most Dedicated/Perseverance Award: Riikka Sallinen Trophy

Being a talented player and having to retire early is an all-too-common story in women’s hockey. What about retiring early but then coming back after a decade of being retired, and adding so much to your resume that you become the first European women’s hockey player to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame? That’s an extremely rare story, to the point that it belongs to one person only: Riikka Sallinen.

Sallinen has the most points of any non-North American player in the Olympics and in the World Championships. Let’s not forget, she holds those records while missing 10 of what should have been her best years. You don’t see that in any part of hockey, but Sallinen pulled it off. In her final year of playing hockey (2018-19) at the age of 45, Sallinen had four points in seven games at the WHC and 51 points in 33 games in the SDHL.

Trailblazer/Community/Inclusion Award: Saroya Tinker Award

The idea for this award would be to give it to the player who had done the most to make the sport more inclusive and welcoming through whatever means necessary, usually through some sort of community work. Meredith, the better author of this piece (Meredith’s note: I didn’t pay him to say this), already picked out the best name: Browne-Platt Trophy.

I’m going to go with who I believe deserves recognition for a great runner-up name, and it’s Saroya Tinker. As a woman of colour, her path through hockey hasn’t been easy, but she’s doing her best to make it easier for the players that follow her. Her most notable piece of work is being a Co-Founder & Executive Director of Black Girls Hockey Club, a well-known organization dedicated to making hockey more accessible to girls of colour.

Goalie of the Year: Manon Rhéaume Trophy

This was an extremely hard one to settle on a name for. Women’s hockey has seen quite the parade of elite goalies: Kim St-Pierre, Shannon Szabados, Florence Schelling, Noora Räty, Charline Labonté, Erin Whitten, Hong Guo, and Kim Martin. You could put all those names on a dart board, close your eyes, hope you don’t hit anyone, throw it, and whatever name it hits is a deserving namesake of the (Insert Name Here) trophy.

The name I’m going with though is so well-known throughout the hockey community, but that’s about where it ends: Manon Rhéaume. She’s not in any Hall of Fames, and she has no awards named after her. Rhéaume’s career was what would have happened to Noora Räty had Räty not had a Finnish pro men’s league step up and sign her to a contract.

Still, she broke so many barriers from being the first girl to play in the Quebec Pee Wee International Tournament, first woman to play in the QMJHL, and of course the one she’s the most well known for: first woman to play in a NHL game. With no suitable women’s leagues at the time and being in her prime, Rhéaume would embark upon a terrifying journey as a young woman in the 90s: trying to make a living in minor pro men’s hockey leagues.

Rhéaume would go on to play 24 games between the ECHL, IHL, and WCHL, which was the most a woman had played in North America pro men’s leagues until Shannon Szabados played in the SPHL. We lost out on possibly the greatest career we could see of a goalie in women’s hockey simply because the infrastructure wasn’t there. Rhéaume deserves this honour because of how good she was, not because she was a nice story once.

Playoff MVP: Hilda Ranscombe Trophy

Going back into the past for this one, because her accolades and the testimonials of those who watched Hilda Ranscombe are too big to ignore.

On a scale of 1-10 in terms of how strongly I feel one way or another about an award name, this would be at an 11. Ranscombe played and captained from 1930 to 1940 for the Preston Rivulettes and with her as the best player, the Rivulettes knew nothing but winning. It’s estimated they played 350 games in the 30s and lost three times. The team, and particularly Ranscombe, were so popular they managed to get booked at the Montreal Forum to play a Dominion Women’s Hockey Championship (at the time their version of a national championship).

In Ontario they never lost a provincial championship, winning 10 straight championships and igniting a furor for the game. When it came to Dominion Championships, they won four out of five with their only loss coming after making an extremely long train ride from Ontario to Edmonton that decimated the team before they got there.

Ranscombe was so good that even in the 1930’s there was speculation about her being brought onto an NHL team. From teammates, fans, opponents, and on-lookers alike, there are testimonials where they compare her to Gordie Howe and Wayne Gretzky. For the time, that’s an impressive amount of praise. To cap it off, she’s the hockey player’s hockey player as she’s quoted as saying “The whole team was the most valuable player” when asked about just how good she was.

PWHL Championship: The Abby Hoffman Cup

This is by far the most difficult one to pick. What should be the name of the trophy these players and future players are going to want to put down in their goals journal? It’s really unfortunate the CWHL and PHF folded because the Clarkson and Isobel Cups were great. We can live in a fantasy as much as we want, but those names aren’t coming back; it’s just too soon to do so. Unless current Canadian Governor General Mary Simon commissions a new Cup, we’re wading into unchartered territory here. It’s possible I already used up a good name such as Hilda Ranscombe or Fran Rider and we need to find new names for those trophies. If either one ends up being the Cup name, I’d see no issues there.

A team that has stuck with me through this research is the Edmonton Chimos. They played a massive role in revitalizing the women’s game with their barnstorming through Alberta led by the first modern day superstar in Shirley Cameron. Now there’s a connection with the Chimos, Cameron, Rider, and James in that they were all apart of the first ever women’s national championships post-WWII.

As mentioned previously, Rider put together a lot of tournaments, and one of those was the women’s hockey National Championship where the winners were given the Abby Hoffman Cup. The Cup was named after Abby Hoffman, a young girl who in the 1950s had to disguise herself as a boy to play hockey. She was found out after making an all-star team at the highest level, banned from the league, and took her case to the Ontario Supreme Court. She never got to live out her hockey dreams as she quit hockey almost immediately.

When the popularity of women’s hockey died out in the midst of WWII, we didn’t see the first seeds that would become pro women’s hockey today without the Abby Hoffman Cup being presented at the Canadian Women’s Hockey Nationals. It wasn’t until word spread across the ocean of the work Rider and those around her were doing, plus the attention Shirley Cameron and the Edmonton Chimos were getting, that other nations realized it was time to give their girls and women a place to play.

The very first version of the Naisten Liiga was created in Finland in 1982, and two years later Sweden created their own Women’s Hockey National Championship that would blossom into what we now know as the SDHL. The Abby Hoffman Cup has so many connections to the start of international women’s hockey in the 90s, it would fit right in with the goal of honouring history.