Do You Want Me to Thank Your Wife, Manny?

Well the awards show is over...THANK GOD, and if you don't know what my title means then you definitely missed the only funny thing that happened. I am happy all three of the Bruins won their awards, respectively, but the show was a mess. (good article on that, read here: http://bit.ly/gIAog )

Alright, so I'm going to start with the Calder Trophy, also known as "Rookie of the Year". The nominees up for this one all had amazing seasons, but I knew who I wanted to win and I knew who was GOING to win. Steve Mason, hands down, had this award. He is probably 90% of the reason Columbus earned themselves a playoff berth. I'm glad for him.

Now on to the Lester B. Pearson Award, which is given to the player most outstanding in regular season. I wanted Evgeni Malkin to win this because I feel as though he works so hard, and sometimes goes unnoticed just because of how amazing Alex Ovechkin is. I love Ovechkin, but everybody already knows how great he can be. So as you can tell from what I just said, Ovie did end up winning this award. Yay for Ovie.

I'm skipping out of order from when they were given out simply to get all the Pavel Datsyuk ones out of the way. I'm a big fan of Datsyuk, his play, and skills but think one of the awards he won could have also gone to another nominee. That award being the Frank J. Selke Award given to an outstanding defensive forward. The other two nominees were Ryan Kesler and Mike Richards, both who deserved this as well. The other award Datsyuk won was the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, which he's won several times before. This one I think he deserved more than the other nominees in Marty St. Louis and Zach Parise. Jeez, Datsyuk wins all these awards yet; his English still isn't that great? Oh well, next award.

Time for the MVP. I probably should have saved that for last, but I'm doing the Bruins hat trick last seeing as how it was my favorite part of the night. OK so the Hart Memorial Trophy (MVP) went to whom else but Ovie once again! This is another one Malkin could have won, but he has the Stanley Cup so I guess that's all that matters.

Masterton Trophy is one of my favorite trophies because it's awarded to the player "who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey." Players who win this always deserve it and last nights winner was Steve Sullivan from the Nashville Predators. I was really hoping he'd win and not Richard Zednik. I know Zednik went through a tramatic time when he was cut with a blade of a skate, but I've always had a random grudge against this player since his days in Montreal. Enough about him though, it's time for the boys of Boston.

I was very proud to have my Bruins take home four awards. The Jennings Trophy I already knew they had won, since it's given to the pair of goalies who allow the least amount of goals in regular season, so that's not what the best part about it was. It was the humor of Tim Thomas, which Bruins fans usually only understand. Last night he was thanking the organization, coaches, team, and his family which is basically the same people Manny Fernandez would need to thank. So casually he turned to Fernandez and said "Do you want me to thank your wife, Manny?" There you have my title of this post!

Thomas also was awarded the Vezina Trophy for outstanding goaltender. His speech for this was what I thought was the best of the night; hopefully I'm not being too biased there. I can't explain how excited I was for him. He deserved this award. Zdeno Chara finally won the James Norris Memorial Trophy awarded to the most outstanding defenseman. He was nominated last year, but favorite Nick Lidstrom had won it again. Not this year, it was Chara's turn. Last, is the Jack Adams Award. It’s an award for the most outstanding coach. Bruins bench boss, Claude Julien, won for turning this Bruins team in the right direction. This made my night complete, and it was a hat trick for the Boston Bruins.

(see video of Tim Thomas & Manny Fernandez here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JINCxuG-Fgw )