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Wayne Gretzky found out when he stopped in at his Toronto restaurant. A reporter told Martin Brodeur the night before.Anticlimax was the theme of the NHL Awards June 17 in Toronto.
The process garnered as much attention as the winners. On June 16, the Quatre Saisons television network in Quebec announced a list of winners that corresponded exactly to the roster of awards unveiled the following night.
The league promised to investigate the leak.
“It’s disappointing,” said Bernadette Mansur, NHL vice-president, corporate communications. “It doesn’t diminish the achievements, but it does take a bit of the magic away.”
Much of the magic that remained be-longed to double winner Sergei Fedorov, who became the first non-North American to win the Hart Trophy as league MVP.
He also won the Frank Selke Trophy as the top defensive forward. Fedorov, who had 56 goals and 120 points in 82 games for the Detroit Red Wings finished on top of the Hart Trophy voting ahead of two goalies, Dominik Hasek of the Buffalo Sabres and John Vanbiesbrouck of the Florida Panthers.
Hasek did receive the Vezina Trophy as the league’s best goalie and shared the Jennings Trophy with teammate Grant Fuhr for the league’s best combined goals-against average.
Boston Bruins’ defenseman Ray Bourque won his fifth Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman after a two-year absence.
“I wanted to prove I was still here,” Bourque said, “still kicking and still playing at a high level.”
Los Angeles Kings’ superstar Gretzky, meanwhile, hit the quarter-century mark for major NHL awards with his Art Ross Trophy as the NHL’s top scorer and Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanship.
They go along with his nine Art Ross Trophies, nine Harts, three Lady Byngs and two Conn Smythes.
The New Jersey Devils took home their first two major awards in franchise history when Brodeur was awarded the Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie and Jacques Lemaire the Jack Adams Award as top coach.
In other awards, Boston Bruins’ right winger Cam Neely won the Bill Masterton Trophy for perseverance and dedication and Adam Graves of the New York Rangers won the King Clancy Trophy for leadership on and off the ice.
Fedorov also won the Lester B. Pearson Award for league MVP as voted by members of the NHL Players’ Association. Devils’ defenseman Scott Stevens took the Alka-Seltzer Plus Award for his plus-58 ranking and Rangers’ defenseman Brian Leetch took the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
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