2023-24 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy finalists: Frederik Andersen, Connor Ingram, Oliver Kylington | Winner: Connor Ingram

[OKR]

Recognizing people for overcoming challenges is stupid?

No, having journalists who have literally zero knowledge of the said challenges vote for the guy who they think struggled the most is.

1. How do they compare something like career threatening injury with mental health struggles? Or even ”just” career threatening back injury with career threatening hip/knee/head injury etc?

2. How do they reward one without directly implying his challenges were more severe than the others?

3. How do they even know how much someone struggled with those challenges?

4. Why would you have a trophy that nobody wants to win in the first place?

It’s a stupid trophy. I’m all for recognizing people overcoming challenges, but this ain’t the right way to do so.

 

[AhosDatsyukian]

should be Freddie

 

[Bounces R Way]

should be Kyller

 

[Foppberg]

Should be

 

[tarheelhockey]

This may sound crazy, but you can recognize people for overcoming challenges without making it a sad story popularity contest where their challenges are stacked against each others. It’s a stupid category for a competitive trophy, you can recognize people in other ways.

Nothing worse than being the Masterton runner up, you can’t even have tragedies happen to you good enough to win you chump, just absolutely choked your whole personal tragedy instead of doubling down and milking it.

You think this is a competitive trophy?

No, having journalists who have literally zero knowledge of the said challenges vote for the guy who they think struggled the most is.

1. How do they compare something like career threatening injury with mental health struggles? Or even ”just” career threatening back injury with career threatening hip/knee/head injury etc?

2. How do they reward one without directly implying his challenges were more severe than the others?

3. How do they even know how much someone struggled with those challenges?

4. Why would you have a trophy that nobody wants to win in the first place?

It’s a stupid trophy. I’m all for recognizing people overcoming challenges, but this ain’t the right way to do so.

I’m surprised you are in support of recognizing people who overcome challenges. What if you miss someone? Imagine being the person who struggled and failed to get recognized, they would be crushed.

Or, they would just move on with their life and feel good for the people who got recognized because this honestly isn’t that big of a deal and is just a nice gesture for its own sake.

 

[OKR]

You think this is a competitive trophy?



I’m surprised you are in support of recognizing people who overcome challenges. What if you miss someone? Imagine being the person who struggled and failed to get recognized, they would be crushed.

Or, they would just move on with their life and feel good for the people who got recognized because this honestly isn’t that big of a deal and is just a nice gesture for its own sake.

”I’m surprised you are in support of recognizing people who overcome challenges.”

Just wow…

Because i think it’s stupid that people who have literally zero idea about the struggles of people are voting for who struggled the most and thus directly downplaying struggles of others based on absolutely nothing? Because i think it’s stupid to even compare the severity of people’s struggles means to you that i think people shouldn’t be rewarded for overcoming challenges?

That’s f***ing stupid.

 

[TheBeard]

Recognizing people for overcoming challenges is stupid?

I kind of understand though. You don't need a trophy to recognize overcoming. It's really odd to define someone's adversity as better or worse by voting on it for a trophy.

 

[tarheelhockey]

”I’m surprised you are in support of recognizing people who overcome challenges.”

Just wow…

Because i think it’s stupid that people who have literally zero idea about the struggles of people are voting for who struggled the most and thus directly downplaying struggles of others based on absolutely nothing? Because i think it’s stupid to even compare the severity of people’s struggles means to you that i think people shouldn’t be rewarded for overcoming challenges?

That’s f***ing stupid.

Did you stop reading after that first sentence?

 

[OKR]

Did you stop reading after that first sentence?

Quite ironic when you literally failed to give a single answer or reasoning to any of the questions i brought up in my post, but instead tried to claim i lack empathy when you think it’s somehow not stupid and even a ”nice gesture” to vote on whose adversity is more ”deserving” of a trophy…

 

[tarheelhockey]

Quite ironic when you literally failed to give a single answer or reasoning to any of the questions i brought up in my post, but instead tried to claim i lack empathy when you think it’s somehow not stupid and even a ”nice gesture” to vote on whose adversity is more ”deserving” of a trophy…

If you think I was making a claim that you lack empathy, you really didn’t read (or understand) my post.

 

[Joe McGrath]

All trophies are stupid, except the Stanley Cup. This includes every other sports trophy at every level as well.

 

[OKR]

If you think I was making a claim that you lack empathy, you really didn’t read (or understand) my post.

How were you not, when you literally said twice that i think rewarding people for overcoming adversity is stupid?

Imagine you were a NHL player and you had a pancreatic cancer and overcame it to play again and then you were pitted against someone who overcame a colorectal cancer and total randoms would vote on who they think had it worst, in what world is that a nice gesture?

As stupid as that is, atleast you’d have some stats etc. to use as a measuring stick, but how do you expect total randoms to decide which is a bigger adversity, career threatening severe deppresion or career threatening back injury?

It’s stupid, plain and simple.

 

[tarheelhockey]

How were you not, when you literally said twice that i think rewarding people for overcoming adversity is stupid?

Imagine you were a NHL player and you had a pancreatic cancer and overcame it to play again and then you were pitted against someone who overcame a colorectal cancer and total randoms would vote on who they think had it worst, in what world is that a nice gesture?

As stupid as that is, atleast you’d have some stats etc. to use as a measuring stick, but how do you expect total randoms to decide which is a bigger adversity, career threatening severe deppresion or career threatening back injury?

It’s stupid, plain and simple.

This logic only works if you think players are “pitted against each other” for this award.

Being nominated is an honor, particularly on teams where nobody went through any major tragedy so the choice is simply an acknowledgement of the player’s persistence and dedication. How is that pitting him against anyone? It’s just an honor.

And I don’t know why you’re talking about randoms, this isn’t a fan vote. PHWA has a lot of dopes, but even the dumbest of them should be aware of the league’s major human interest stories.

 

[OKR]

This logic only works if you think players are “pitted against each other” for this award.

Being nominated is an honor, particularly on teams where nobody went through any major tragedy so the choice is simply an acknowledgement of the player’s persistence and dedication. How is that pitting him against anyone? It’s just an honor.

And I don’t know why you’re talking about randoms, this isn’t a fan vote. PHWA has a lot of dopes, but even the dumbest of them should be aware of the league’s major human interest stories.

They’re quite literally pitted against each other tho, in order for them to choose who to vote, they need to compare the adversities against each other and then rank them…

Every team nominates a one player and then the PHWA ranks them to come up with the finalists, how do you rank something without putting them against each other?


Why am i talking about randoms? Because being in the PHWA gives you zero insight to the players personal life, they’re total randoms to the players. They don’t know how much Frederik Andersen personally struggled with the bloodclots nor do they know how much Kylington or Ingram personally struggled with mental health, they have literally zero idea of the degree of the adversity they faced.

I, as a fan know that Andersen suffered with career threatening bloodclots, Ingram suffered with undiagnosed OCD that lead to anxiety, alcohol abuse and lingering deppression and Kylington had long going family issues that lead to his mental health struggles.

The PHWA doesn’t know anymore than i do about the degree of struggle each of them went through, how are they anymore capable to determine which one ”best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to ice hockey”?

For all they know, Andersen might’ve made a peace with calling it quits if his career was over, or Kylington and Ingram could’ve just hopped on meds and therapy and be relatively fine, or all of them could’ve contemplated suicide because of it, they have no way of knowing any of it, yet they rank them by who ”best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to ice hockey”

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

This should be Kylington’s trophy going away.

 

[tarheelhockey]

They’re quite literally pitted against each other tho, in order for them to choose who to vote, they need to compare the adversities against each other and then rank them…

Every team nominates a one player and then the PHWA ranks them to come up with the finalists, how do you rank something without putting them against each other?


Why am i talking about randoms? Because being in the PHWA gives you zero insight to the players personal life, they’re total randoms to the players. They don’t know how much Frederik Andersen personally struggled with the bloodclots nor do they know how much Kylington or Ingram personally struggled with mental health, they have literally zero idea of the degree of the adversity they faced.

I, as a fan know that Andersen suffered with career threatening bloodclots, Ingram suffered with undiagnosed OCD that lead to anxiety, alcohol abuse and lingering deppression and Kylington had long going family issues that lead to his mental health struggles.

The PHWA doesn’t know anymore than i do about the degree of struggle each of them went through, how are they anymore capable to determine which one ”best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to ice hockey”?

For all they know, Andersen might’ve made a peace with calling it quits if his career was over, or Kylington and Ingram could’ve just hopped on meds and therapy and be relatively fine, or all of them could’ve contemplated suicide because of it, they have no way of knowing any of it, yet they rank them by who ”best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to ice hockey”

It’s just a weird thing to have so much negative energy about. Nobody is being insulted here. The nominees get an honor from the team, they all get positive attention for their efforts, the finalists get flown out to Vegas and treated to a gala experience, the winner gets a trophy and a bunch of additional positive attention, and everyone moves on.

Who is losing out or having a negative experience in this situation? The only negativity is coming from someone shitting on it on the Internet.

 

[TheBeard]

It’s just a weird thing to have so much negative energy about. Nobody is being insulted here. The nominees get an honor from the team, they all get positive attention for their efforts, the finalists get flown out to Vegas and treated to a gala experience, the winner gets a trophy and a bunch of additional positive attention, and everyone moves on.

Who is losing out or having a negative experience in this situation? The only negativity is coming from someone shitting on it on the Internet.

Imagine getting all those bells and whistles and then being total in front of the entire hockey community that the writers don’t think your tragedy was that bad in comparison to someone else’s. It’s the most backhanded compliment in hockey.

 

[HolyGhost]

It's stupid because journalists are making it a competition on who overcame the most. Makes no sense in having a trophy like that. It's dumb.



I agree with that. Another reason why this trophy is stupid. No one wants it.



Well, they wouldn't be nominated for the trophy from the beginning if the injuries were career ending. It's about fighting back and overcoming health issues. But those things should not be a competition that journalists gets to decide who's got the sadder story and give them a trophy for it.

Injuries happen all the time. Like I said, if it is just about coming back from injuries, Stone of Vegas wins next year.

 

[Buck Naked]

Injuries happen all the time. Like I said, if it is just about coming back from injuries, Stone of Vegas wins next year.

Doubt he's ever been his team's nominee even. He makes too much money and you can set your watch to his scheduled injury calendar. Not story enough and voters don't feel sorry enough for him.

 

[OKR]

It’s just a weird thing to have so much negative energy about. Nobody is being insulted here. The nominees get an honor from the team, they all get positive attention for their efforts, the finalists get flown out to Vegas and treated to a gala experience, the winner gets a trophy and a bunch of additional positive attention, and everyone moves on.

Who is losing out or having a negative experience in this situation? The only negativity is coming from someone shitting on it on the Internet.

Imagine thinking that’s weird, and not thinking that it’s weird that they poll every team asking ”hey, who do you think faced the most adversity in your team this year? So that we can put them in order of who struggled the most?

Making a straight up ranking of strangers adversity is weird af, how anyone disagrees with this is beyond weird.

 

[Paper]

Hopefully next year Dube can get nominated for his mental health comeback like Kylington

 

[Dirty Dan]

Mark Stone would have been my vote

 

[Koivu11]

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

Good choice.

I swear most years it's either no one really deserves it, or all 3 do and then some

 

[Super Hans]

Hopefully next year Dube can get nominated

You're thinking of the Danny Masterson Trophy.