It appears that the heartwarming video Josh Allen received from the Oishei Children’s Hospital of Buffalo after winning the NFL MVP has got the NHL thinking.
As the league looks to change the way it delivers its annual end-of-year awards, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports there will no longer be a made-for-TV show this season. Instead, the NHL is looking to surprise the winners with their accomplishments.
“The NHL looked at (the Allen) video and said, ‘maybe we can do something like this,'” Friedman reported on the Saturday Headlines segment during Hockey Night in Canada. “What they’re going for is the element of surprise.
“Instead of the children, in this particular case, congratulating Allen, maybe you could have them inform an NHL player that he has won an award.”
Last season, the NHL saw the likes of Connor McDavid, Quinn Hughes and Connor Hellebuyck honoured as the best of the best at the awards show, however, the show had frequently been criticized for being awkward and boring.
The feedback has sent the NHL searching for ways to spice up the way it reveals the winners to the public.
“It could be a friend or a relative or a mentor of an NHL player showing up to present them with an award,” Friedman said of who might be tasked with surprising the players. “Maybe it’s something like a prank, where at the end of it, the player is told, ‘well, there’s a reason we put you through this,’ and it’s because you’ve won this award.”
The 2024 awards were hosted on June 27 in Las Vegas, three days after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Final, one day before the first round of the NHL Draft and one week before the opening of free agency.
If the league were to use these viral moments to deliver the news to players that they have won their respective awards, it would allow for an earlier rollout — similar to the way the NBA honours its top players in the first round of the post-season.
“We should see this start to happen during the playoffs,” Friedman said. “I think what you may see at the end, though, is some of the biggest ones, like the Hart, held back and maybe (revealed in) a full pre-produced show that airs sometime during the Stanley Cup Final.”
