FS: Figure Skating Awards: An Idea for the ISU

I just finished watching the Annual NHL Awards tonight.  Hosted again in Las Vegas, this year’s host was funny (one of the kids from the Mighty Duck movies), and even had a special moment (between Carey Price and a kid that just lost his mom to cancer), that brought me to tears.  As I was watching, I was thinking, why couldn’t the ISU implement something similar for Figure Skating?  If you have ever seen how the NHL does up the annual event in Vegas, you know that it’s a huge deal in the league and a great event for fans.  It is always a sold out event!

In my idea, each of the large trophies could be kept at the ISU headquarters and brought out at special events like Worlds for fans to take pictures with like they do at hockey events and over the years the name plates would be engraved with the names of the winners.  The winners of each award would receive a small replica of the trophy for their own trophy cabinets (same as the NHL awards).  Like the Stanley Cup, when you run out of room to add another name, you take the oldest plate off and store it in the “Hall of Fame” to preserve it forever and to make room for new plates.

This is what I would suggest for annual figure skating awards (for active skaters/coaches):  Of course, each of these awards could be presented in all 4 disciplines (Mens, Womens, Pairs, and Dance) but I came up with these with the mindset of the mens event (since I was relating it to hockey).

The NHL Art Ross Trophy goes to the NHL player who leads the league in points at the end of the regular season.  In figure skating, I would call this the Yuzuru Hanyu Trophy since Yuzu has been the “Breaker of Barriers” in the scoring system (new and old).  This award would be given to the skater who scored the highest overall score of each season (SP and FS combined).  Since this award is points based, no voting would be required for this award.

Art Ross Trophy

Initially, the NHL only gave an award to the “total” points winner in each season, but a few years ago, they introduced the Rocket Richard Trophy to recognize the highest goal scorer in the regular season, so following this example, I would also have an award for highest Short Program and highest Long Program score.  We can call these trophies the Plushy (SP) and Orser (LP) Awards.  (Sorry, cannot name every trophy after Yuzu).  Since these awards are points based, no voting would be required for these awards.

Rocket Richard Trophy

The NHL Jack Adams Award goes to the NHL Coach of the Year.  It is awarded to the coach that has contributed the most to his team’s success.  In figure skating, I would call this the Alexei Mishin Award.  Voting for this award would be done by all of the other coaches at the international/world level.

The NHL Calder Trophy goes to the Rookie of the Year.  Of course, there are rules that define the term “rookie” in the NHL.  For example, the player has to have played a minimum number of games etc.  So, for the Figure Skating equivalent I would propose the Scott Trophy to the best skater in his/her first senior season.  I named the trophy after Barbara Ann Scott.  The rules would include that they would need to have competed in at least 2 Grand Prix events to qualify.  Voting for this award would be done by accredited sportswriters (one vote per media person in each ISU member country).

The Lady Byng Trophy goes to the NHL Player that is Most Sportsmanlike.  In figure skating, I would like to name this award the Pooh Award.  This award would be voted on by active competitive skaters in the senior ranks and be given to the skater that demonstrates fare play and friendliness amongst his peers.

Other Figure Skating awards that I would put in this list that do not have an NHL equivalent are ones like:

The Patrick Chan Award, which would be given to the skater that exemplified the best Skating Skills in the season.  This would be voted on by all previous winners of the award, the first time the award would be presented, it would be voted on by Patrick himself, so the number of voters would be cumulative.

The Best Choreography Award would be another discipline I would like to honour.  I struggle to name this award because I couldn’t decide between the Bourne Award or the Buttle Award because those are my favorite choreographers.  I guess since I have made this post more “mens event focused”, I would need to call this the Buttle Award.  This award could be voted on by choreographers that have choreographed a program that was skated in the current season (and of course, Jeff can vote too regardless).

This year, the NHL just started having various “fan favorite awards” where they post gifs in various categories on twitter and fans can vote for their favorites.  These awards don’t receive trophies, but are a friendly way of involving fans in the awards ceremony and are announced the day of the big event.  But, for my blog post here, I am going to create an award called the Fan Favorite Award for the Fan Favorite as voted on by the fans.  Each year the fans could vote for whomever they want, regardless of if the skater is ranked top 10 or not, but the skater would have to be an “active” competitive skater.

Would love to hear from my readers – ideas for some awards.

So there you have it, just having some fun imagining things that will never happen, but you gotta dream big right?  

 

Go Yuzu Go!!!  Doki Doki!!