Jaromir Jagr! Yes, there were some other truly deserving mullets out there to choose from. But when I realized that he was a dead ringer for 2/3 of the girls in my (mid '80's) high school yearbooks, I knew we had our winner. Nice bangs, jackass...
It goes to the biggest [well, you know...] in the NHL. We fought over this award (both the design and the winner) long and hard [pun fully intended]. We agreed relatively quickly, that the winner would be Jack "I won't play for Carolina" Johnson. But we couldn't agree on what form the trophy should take. I wanted a golden baby. Wuff wanted a golden kitten. But then, we compromised on a vibrator. It only made sense, as Johnson and the vibrator both have something in common. They are both stuck up twats.
This year's award goes to Olli Jokinen; for his outstanding achievement in the art of whining about diving. In fact, his whining act was so good this year, it actually affected the officiating in at least one game, and maybe two. The balloting for this award wasn't even close. Ole Whiny Jokinen's crying was so good/bad this year, we nearly went ahead and gave it to him for next year as well. But we didn't, because we figured he'd whine about that too, if we did.
The NHL also gives out the "Norris" Trophy. This goes to the best Defenseman in the league. What do we here at C.O.I. think? Big whoop. Who cares about Pronger, Chara, Lidstrom, some other random mutant, ... etc. They've got nothing on Chad Larose - the winner of C.O.I.'s "Chuck Norris" Trophy:
But be careful Chad, the Chuck Norris Trophy must be kept seperate from any other trophies. It has been known to eat them, and crap little aluminum bullets. It is that bad ass...
And last, but certainly not least... There is another NHL award that is closely connected with the Hurricanes. It is the "Lady Byng" award for gentlemanly play. Ronnie Francis has a couple of these in his collection. But we just couldn't bring ourselves to reward gentlemanly play. Rather, we thought we'd come up with an award for work ethic. But being motivated slackers, we decided it'd be more appropriate if we came up with an award not for work ethic; but rather a lack thereof. An award for the player that best exemplifies the attitude of "I don't care if my save percentage is lower than Roger Clemens' batting average; I'm skipping practice and heading to the strip club!" So, we created the "Bada Byng" Award.
And this year's winner is: [dramatic music please]
The Russian League's newest backup goalie - John Grahame!
So anyways, thank you for tuning in for this special presentation of the first Annual C.O.I. Awards Banquet. We hope you enjoyed the show as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Be sure to tune in next week when Wuffy comes back from vacation and realizes that I've posted both a picture of a vibrator and the word "twat" in the same post. Mayhem ensues...