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The National Hockey League will make a mistake if it renames its annual player awards. The National Hockey League Players’ Association, somehow, did not make a mistake in renaming its annual award.

Nothing against the NHL or NHLPA, but I think renaming seasoned awards such as the Hart Trophy, Calder Trophy or Vézina Trophy is wrong. Those trophies have history and the persons after whom the trophies were named made significant contributions to the game of hockey. I believe in the same tradition and memory carried by the Lester B. Pearson Award.

The Ted Lindsay Award, however, is a fabulous fit. In a way, the NHLPA didn’t really rename its trophy as it did retire the Lester B. Pearson Award and introduce the Ted Lindsay Award. The new trophy itself even recognizes the first 38 winners as recipients of the Lester B. Pearson Award, not the Ted Lindsay Award.

Lester B. Pearson was the Prime Minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968, during which time the NHLPA was created in 1967. He was a significant Canadian, having won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 “for his role in defusing the Suez Crisis through the United Nations.”

Lindsay should have been given a prize for creating the first National Hockey League Players’ Association in 1957. He created the first association with the help of fellow players Bill Gadsby, Doug Harvey, Fern Flaman, Gus Mortson, Jim Thomson, and others. The Association’s mandate was to “promote, foster and protect the interests of the players.” Lindsay was the first president.

For his efforts, Lindsay was branded an outcast. He was stripped of his captaincy in Detroit and then traded to a weak Chicago Blackhawks team for no other reason than to break Lindsay’s will. The NHL owners wanted nothing to do with the players working together for the better good.

That first Association may have been squashed, but as the NHLPA said, “it laid the groundwork for the formation of the current NHLPA… in 1967, the NHLPA was formally ratified as a labour organization whose members are the players in the NHL.”

The Lester B. Pearson award was introduced in 1970-71. It celebrates the NHL’s Most Outstanding Player, as voted by members of the NHLPA. Twenty-two different players won the Pearson Award from 1970-71 to 2008-09.

The new Ted Lindsay award will also celebrate the NHL’s Most Outstanding Player. It will still be the players that cast the ballot, taking part in an annual secret ballot to choose the best player in the game.

According to the NHLPA, Pearson’s name will continue to play an important role within the NHLPA. Along with his name being engraved on the Lindsay Award, the NHLPA’s Goals & Dreams equipment donation will now be made in Pearson’s name to a Canadian youth hockey organization.

Make no mistake about it, the NHLPA got it right in naming this “new” trophy in honour of Lindsay. It is, after all, his legacy that the NHL players are well represented in today’s game.

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