Steve writes:
 
> Bob Johnson was a great man who passed away recently.  I think it
> would be an excellent tribute to him to name the Div I Men's Hockey
> Championship after him.  But there might be someone else more
> deserving.  Emotions are high right now for Bob Johnson.  Along the
> same lines as with Magic Johnson, when his announcement came.  You
> can't let emotions play a part in something like this.  Because if
> you do, you'll be changing the name of the trophy every year.
 
This is a point to consider, but only insofar as we make sure that when we do
name the trophy, it is named after a person who contributed enough to the game
that there would be no desire to take his name off the trophy if a strong
candidate were to come along in the future.
 
> What if, God forbid, Len Ceglarski passed away next year.  Would we
> then change the name of the trophy to the "Len Ceglarski Memorial
> Trophy"?  You get my point.
 
If we are to worry about this kind of thing happening, we should never name any
trophy after anyone.  Certainly, one could make a case for naming the NFL
trophy the Pete Rozelle trophy (now that he is retired) instead of the
Lombardi trophy.  After all, he oversaw the greatest expansion in terms of
monetary and popularity gains in the history of the league and was instumental
in forming the game as we know it.  But, Lombardi's name will always be on the
trophy for the reason I stated above.  He contributed too much to the game
to consider removing his name from that piece of hardware even though Rozelle
contributed at least as much.
 
Should Bob Johnson have the college hockey trophy named after him?
Unfortunately, I'm with Ross on this one.  I only heard of him as the Penguin's
coach and it seems to me that he had something to do with the development of
our olympic teams for a while.  Alone, this doesn't seem like enough to give
him the honor.  I don't know what else he has done.
 
 Bob Johnson not withstanding though, my vote is for the Ned Harkness Trophy.
He won three national championships in '54 (RPI), '67 (Cornell), and '70
(Cornell again).  He created the program at RPI and is responsible for the
existence of Houston Field House if I have my history correct.  Additionally,
he coached the RPI lacrosse team to a national championship (no tourney then,
just rankings) while coaching the hockey team to the same.  His 1970 Cornell
team is still the only undefeated, untied team in DivI history (29-0-0), and
this was following the 1969 season when the team lost in the national
semifinals and subsequently lost a large number of seniors (8 or 9?) which
included three or four All-Americans. (One of the All-Americans being Ken
Dryden).  Because of petty jealousies within the college hockey world, he was
incredibly not picked coach of the year in 1970.
 
As I said before, there are a number of deserving candidates, and whoever the
trophy would be named for, someone else would come along and contribute more to
the game in the future.  As long as we are confident that the person we honred
is himself (or herself) a deserving candidate, we shouldn't worry about the
future contributions (or deaths) of others.
 
--
Dave [log in to unmask]
Cornell '91 OSU Med '95
Let's Go Red!
"If I have seen further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of
giants."
               --Sir Isaac Newton