Huge congrats to PHWA president Kevin Allen, honored today by the Hockey Hall of Fame as this year’s Elmer Ferguson award winner.
Full details in the press release below from the Hockey Hall of Fame:
TORONTO (June 5, 2014) – Eric Duhatschek, Vice-President, Professional Hockey Writers’ Association, and Chuck Kaiton, President of the NHL Broadcasters’ Association, announced today that KEVIN ALLEN will receive the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award for excellence in hockey journalism and PAT FOLEY will receive the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for outstanding contributions as a hockey broadcaster.
Kevin Allen has been USA Today’s hockey expert since 1986, and is the only writer to make Hockey News’ Top 100 list of most influential people in the sport each year of the list existence. In 2013, Kevin received the Lester Patrick Trophy for outstanding service to hockey in the United States, only the fifth media member so honoured since the award debuted in 1966. He has also written 17 hockey books.
Over the past three decades Allen has covered 600 NHL playoff games, eight Olympics, and 27 Stanley Cup finals, plus Canada Cups, World Cups and World Championships.
“Kevin has managed a neat trick over the years, writing definitive and authoritative hockey commentary in a publication that requires its writers to be tight and bright,” said Duhatschek. “Kevin is the most well-connected of the U.S. based writers and was an ‘insider’ long before the term became ubiquitous.”
Television play-by-play announcer Pat Foley – the voice of the Chicago Blackhawks – is now in his 31st season with the team. The Illinois native began his broadcasting career as a student at Michigan State University, calling baseball and hockey games for the school. Since his professional debut with the International Hockey League’s Grand Rapids Owls in 1977, Foley has won three Emmy awards and was inducted into the Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame in 2002.
“Pat Foley is extremely worthy of this distinction,” said Kaiton. “This legend’s voice and style have been a unique part of Blackhawk hockey for almost four decades.”
Foley and Allen will receive their awards at the Hockey Hall of Fame NHL Media Awards Luncheon presentation in Toronto on Monday, November 17th, and their award plaques will be displayed in the Esso Great Hall at the Hockey Hall of Fame alongside the 90 past award recipients.
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Recipients of these awards, as selected by their respective associations, are recognized by the Hockey Hall of Fame as “Media Honourees” ─ a separate distinction from individuals inducted as “Honoured Members” by the Hockey Hall of Fame Selection Committee.
Named in honour of the late Montreal newspaper reporter, the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award was first presented in 1984 by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association in recognition of distinguished members of the hockey writing profession whose words have brought honour to journalism and to the game of hockey.
Named in honour of the late “Voice of Hockey” in Canada, the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award was first presented in 1984 by the NHL Broadcasters’ Association in recognition of members of the radio and television industry who have made outstanding contributions to their profession and to the game of hockey.