With the Golden Knights' 6-0 win over the Stars Monday night in Dallas, the trophies for the league's postseason champions in either conference have been awarded.
The Golden Knights are the winners of the Clarence Campbell Bowl as the last standing team in the Western Conference, and the Panthers are the winners of the Prince of Wales Trophy as the last standing team in the Eastern Conference.
Man, it's overdue for the NHL to give these awards new names.
The Clarence Campbell Bowl is named after the former president of the NHL, who served from 1946-77. Under Campbell the NHL tripled in size from six to 18 teams. Campbell was also responsible for introducing the draft, the all-star game, and helped create the Hockey Hall of Fame. The NHL's teams all came together at the start of the 1967-68 season -- the first in the expansion era -- to donate the trophy. It was originally the award for the regular-season winner of the West Division, and later the Campbell Conference in 1974 after the league's realignment. It became a postseason award for the Campbell Conference in 1981, and later the Western Conference starting in the 1993-94 season.
Campbell's contributions to the league and sport of hockey as a whole deserve some sort of recognition, but that doesn't mean it has to be one of the league's two playoff conference champion awards.
The man for whom the Prince of Wales Trophy is named isn't quite so honorable.
A little history/British monarchy lesson for anyone who isn't aware (or isn't a fan of The Crown): The Prince of Wales is the title reserved for the male heir who is next in line for the British throne. Prince William is the current holder of the title. But the specific Prince of Wales for whom the trophy is named is Prince Edward, later King Edward VIII. Then-Prince Edward sponsored the trophy in 1925. It cost $2,500 and was to be awarded to the NHL's playoff champion. In 1927 it became the award for the winner of the NHL's American Division. When the league expanded in 1967 the trophy was awarded to the regular-season winner of the East Division, and later the Wales Conference in 1974. The award became a postseason award for the winner of the Wales Conference in 1981, and eventually the Eastern Conference in the 1993-94 season.
Back to Prince Edward. Edward became King Edward VIII in January 1936 following the death of his father, George V. He abdicated (gave up) the throne in November of that same year out of the desire to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Marrying a divorcee was legal for the monarch despite his position as the head of the Church of England, but the kingdom's governments' ministers objected to the union, and a marriage could have caused the ministers to resign, which would have led to a constitutional crisis. Edward chose Simpson over the throne and the throne passed to Edward's younger brother, who became King George VI and was the father of Queen Elizabeth II. Edward and Simpson moved to France in exile and were given the new titles of Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Edward and Simpson visited Nazi Germany and met with Adolf Hitler a year later, exchanging Nazi salutes during the trip. Hitler saw Edward as an ally and planned to restore Edward to the British throne if Germany won the war. Intercepted German telegrams from the war suggest that Edward and Simpson were told of the plan, though Edward denied having any knowledge of the plan when they were made public in 1957. In the 1960s, Edward allegedly told a friend that he "never thought Hitler was such a bad chap."
BBC
Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Adolf Hitler
Yes, Edward sponsored the trophy. The feathers atop the trophy are a badge of the title of the Prince of Wales. That doesn't mean the league needs to keep using it 100 years later. Even if Edward wasn't a Nazi sympathizer, it seems odd to continue to have a trophy named after a British royal in today's age. The league has significantly more American teams than Canadian teams, and last I checked Florida wasn't part of the British Commonwealth.
The Prince of Wales Trophy's name is much more egregious than the Clarence Campbell Bowl. But if you're going to rename one, you might as well rename both.
It's not like there isn't recent precedent for renaming a league award when there is a more appropriate name. The Ted Lindsay Award only got its name in 2010. For the four decades prior it was known as the Lester B. Pearson Award after Canada's former prime minister, but the NHL had the awareness that the award for the league's best player as voted on by the NHLPA would be better off named after Lindsay, who played a major role in founding the NHLPA (and was obviously also one of the league's greatest players.)
So ... what to do with the awards for the current playoff champions of either conference?
I think the existing trophies themselves should go into the Hall of Fame and entirely new trophies should be commissioned. Simply renaming the trophies wouldn't do anything for the Prince of Wales' feathers atop the existing one.
The new trophies should be named after two great former players, and it just works out perfectly that the two greatest players in league history primarily played in different conferences.
The Western Conference's playoff champion should receive the Wayne Gretzky Award. Save for his final three seasons with the Rangers, Gretzky spent his entire career out west with the Oilers, Kings and Blues. The league currently doesn't have a single award named after Gretzky, though three exist in other organizations. The OHL's Western Conference playoff champion award is named the Wayne Gretzky Trophy, and the Wayne Gretzky 99 Award goes to the OHL's most valuable player in the postseason. The U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame has the Wayne Gretzky International Award, which honors non-American individuals who have made significant contributions to the sport of hockey in the United States.
The Eastern Conference's playoff champion should receive the Mario Lemieux Award. Lemieux, obviously, spent his entire career out east with Pittsburgh. He surprisingly doesn't have any awards named after him that I can locate, not even in his former junior league, the QMJHL.
The only potential hiccup I can imagine with those names is that it might be odd if a former rival team of either player is eventually a conference champion. It might be a little weird for the Flyers to have a banner with Lemieux's name hanging from their rafters, right? Luckily for everyone, that won't be a problem for quite some time.
This is far from a new or unique suggestion, to say that the NHL should rename its awards for its postseason conference champions. To date, the NHL doesn't seem to think it's much of a priority. The league remains concerned with much more pressing pursuits, like desperately trying to save the Coyotes, or trying to find new ways to cram as many digital ads into a broadcast as possible.
