Lady Byng Memorial Trophy
 | Award Details
| Most Lady Byng Trophy Selections
|
The Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, formerly known as the Lady Byng Trophy, is presented each year to the National Hockey League hockey player voted to have shown the best sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with performance in play. The voting is conducted by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association at the conclusion of the NHL regular season.
[edit] History
The trophy is named in honour of Marie Evelyn Moreton, known as Lady Byng, wife of Julian H.G. Byng, Viscount Byng of Vimy, a Vimy Ridge war hero who was the Governor-General of Canada in 1925. Lord and Lady Byng were big sports fans with a special interest in ice hockey. Lord Byng rarely missed an Ottawa Senators game and Lady Byng frequently accompanied him.
After the 1924-25 season, Lady Byng invited Senators star Frank Nighbor to Rideau Hall and showed him an ornate trophy. She asked Nighbor if he thought the NHL would accept the trophy as an award to its most sportsmanlike player. When Nighbor said that he thought it would, Lady Byng awarded him the trophy.
After Frank Boucher of the New York Rangers won the award seven times within eight years, he was given the trophy to keep. Lady Byng donated a second trophy in 1935-36. When Lady Byng died in 1949 the NHL presented another trophy and changed the official name to the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy.
No goaltender has ever won the award; Bill Quackenbush and Red Kelly are the only defensemen to do so, and no defenseman has won in over fifty years.
[edit] Lady Byng Memorial Trophy winners
