The Roger Crozier Saving Grace Award, officially billed as the MBNA/MasterCard Roger Crozier Saving Grace Award, is an award in ice hockey given annually to the goaltender who finished the regular season with the best save percentage in the National Hockey League (NHL). Only goaltenders who played 25 games or more in the season are eligible for the award. A goaltender's save percentage represents the percentage of shots on goal that he stops, and is calculated by dividing the number of saves by the total number of shots on goal.
The award was first presented at the conclusion of the 1999–2000 season, and is named in honor of former Detroit Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres and Washington Capitals goaltender Roger Crozier, a Calder and Conn Smythe Trophy winner who played in the NHL from 1964 to 1977. It is presented by the MBNA corporation in memory of Crozier, who worked for the MBNA America Bank after retiring as a player, and died on January 11, 1996. The winner of the trophy receives a commemorative crystal trophy and is given US$25,000 to donate to a youth hockey or other educational program of their choice.
As of 2011, the award has been presented on eleven occasions and won by nine different players. Marty Turco and Tim Thomas are the only goaltenders to have won the award twice. The Dallas Stars and the Boston Bruins have each won the award three times, with Boston being the only team to win it three times consecutively. The award was not presented in 2005, as the entire 2004–05 season was canceled due to the lockout.
Read more about Roger Crozier Saving Grace Award: Winners
Famous quotes containing the words roger, saving, grace and/or award:
“Draw round beloved and bitter men,
Draw round and raise a shout;
The ghost of Roger Casement
Is beating on the door.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The American people is out to get the kaiser. We are bending every nerve and every energy towards that end; anybody who gets in the way of the great machine the energy and devotion of a hundred million patriots is building towards the stainless purpose of saving civilization from the Huns will be mashed like a fly. I’m surprised that a collegebred man like you hasn’t more sense. Don’t monkey with the buzzsaw.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“If I were not perfectly sure of my power to write and of my marvelous ability to express ideas with the utmost grace and vividness.... So, more or less, I had thought of beginning my tale.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)