On Frozen Blog

Capitals’ General Manager George McPhee won the Hobey Baker trophy as college hockey’s most outstanding performer while skating at Bowling Green in 1982, and on Thursday out at Kettler Capitals the GM stood beside the magnificent award and discussed its meaning and, more importantly, he’d allege, the importance of college hockey generally.

It was a lunch hour I was gratified to have spent commuting to and from the rink, and having just 10 minutes’ time as audience to a special trophy showcasing. Think about it — how often are we in Washington afforded the chance to stand near the Hobey Baker — hockey’s Heisman — as well as one of its winners, and listen in on reflections of gratitude that sounded as fresh and heartfelt as perhaps the day the gigantic, glistening trophy was handed over to McPhee? 

The 2009 Hobey Baker will be awarded at Verizon Center next Friday night as part of the Frozen Four festivities.

Prior to Thursday, I had no idea that the Hobey winner got to keep the award, and that an identical statue was awarded to the winning athlete’s school as well. I asked McPhee if the trophy represented the high point of his career as far as awards go, and almost before I could finish asking my question he interjected that in hockey the ultimate awards are those shared by teams, so that years later teammates could reunite in some fashion and reminisce about their shared triumph.

I also asked McPhee if as a Canadian he’d had any idea of Baker’s biography when he won the trophy. He hadn’t. But he quickly did research on the trophy’s namesake.

Hobey Baker was quite simply one of the greatest athletes in American sports history. He captained both the football and hockey teams at Princeton, and today he remains the only member of both the College Football and Hockey Hall of Fame. Such was his stature that Woodrow Wilson stopped to watch Hobey play football at Princeton the day he was elected President.

McPhee’s recollection of that 1982 season is dominated by Bowling Green’s premature ousting from the NCAA tournament, in a season when he and his teammates and much of the college hockey world thought the Falcons were leading title contenders. About a month before the season ended 10 collegians were informed of their Hobey candidacies, McPhee noted. It was in the immediacy of the Falcon’s postseason loss that McPhee learned of his Hobey triumph from his coach. It was a bittersweet moment, but as McPhee reflected further he acknowledged that the award represented his “living up to my end of the bargain” for being granted an athletic scholarship, boarding, books, and even “a letterman’s jacket” at the school.

McPhee today keeps the trophy in his office.

“They did a great job in naming this award after that person,” McPhee told media on Thursday.