NHL Pop Culture Awards: We Pick Hockey's Best Fictional Player, the Stanley Cup's Biggest Hollywood Moment and More

Rihanna, Eric Stonestreet, Rob Riggle and are awarded with honors

By James Chairman Jun 24, 2015 4:00 PMTags
Chicago Blackhawks, Stanley CupBruce Bennett/Getty Images

Last week, the Chicago Blackhawks hoisted Lord Stanley's Cup on their home ice. Today, at the 2015 NHL Awards in Las Vegas, the league gives out the rest of their hardware. Unlike other major sports awards, the NHL Awards are named after historic members of the hockey fraternity. There's the Hart Trophy (Most Valuable Player), the Vezina Trophy (Best Goaltender), the Norris Trophy (Best Defenseman), the Calder Trophy (Top Rookie) and more. In honor of the 2015 NHL Awards, hosted by actor and comedian Rob Riggle, and broadcasting live today at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on NBC Sports Network, we'd like to hand out our own awards to commemorate the NHL's numerous ventures into pop culture.

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Janet Jones Gretzky Trophy (Best Celebrity Spouse): Carrie Underwood: This award, named after the patron saint of hockey wives (and mother of Golf Digest cover model Paulina Gretzky) celebrates the moment when hockey truly crossed over into the pop culture sphere. Actress Janet Jones Gretzky and Wayne Gretzky have been happily married since 1988. Like Jones Gretzky before her, Carrie Underwood is the total package.

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She is one of the biggest stars to come from this century's biggest show. And have you seen her post-baby body?  How about her clothing line? The league is happy to have her as a fan.

Mike Stobe/NHLI via Getty Images

The Cuthbert Award (Biggest It-Girl NHL Fan): Chloë Grace Moretz: In 2005, at the height of her post-Girl Next Door popularity, Calgary native Elisha Cuthbert penned a blog for NHL.com, which made a generation of hockey fans love and respect her. The torch has seemingly been passed to 18-year-old Kick-Ass star Chloë Grace Moretz is an It-Girl (technically Hit-Girl) who may not have had the hockey-loving background like Cuthbert, but once she fell for the sport, she fell hard. She attends games wherever and whenever she can. Just in the last two months, she's taken in home games of the L.A. Kings, N.Y. Islanders, N.Y. Rangers as well as college's Frozen Four. She also completed a 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs bracket and finished the first round in first place!

Devone Byrd, PacificCoastNews.com

The Snoop Award (Celeb Who Rocks NHL Gear the Best): Rihanna: The top Dogg of them all rocked a throwback Penguins jersey in the "Gin and Juice" video and changed the way hockey gear was seen by the world. It's safe to say that no one has ever looked as good in a hockey sweater as Rihanna did in this throwback Senators jersey outside Greystone Manor in April 2013. Who needs pants anyway?  

ABC

The Bob Sugar Trophy (Best On-Screen Performance by the NHL Awards Show Host): Rob Riggle as Gil Thorpe in Modern Family: This honor takes its name from two-time NHL Awards host Jay Mohr's iconic character from Jerry Maguire. Riggle has done a ton of strong character work, and this award was a close call. While he stole scenes in Step Brothers and  21 Jump Street—not to mention when and when he Tased the Wolfpack in Hangover—our favorite Riggle performance is the actor's take on Gil Thorpe, Phil Dunphy's nemesis. As the obnoxious realtor Thorpe, Riggle exudes the type of alpha male, bro-tastic menace that plays the perfect foil to the lovable Dunphy patriarch. And speaking of Modern Family...

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The Stonestreet Award (Best Use of the Stanley Cup by a Modern Family Cast Member): Eric Stonestreet: Winning the award that bears his name means NHL super fan Eric Stonestreet has partied with the Cup multiple times. Amazing Instagram pics of the Cup on the Modern Family set popped up last year as the L.A. Kings' Anze Kopitar brought the trophy to visit. The Cup has been in a lot of phenomenal places, but underneath the family portrait of Mitch, Cam and Lily might be the best. The five-time defending Emmy winners and the most famous trophy in the world are a perfect match.

John Minchillo/Invision for Solid & Striped/AP Images

The 401K Honor (Best Retirement Plan): Sean Avery: Long known as the biggest agitator in the NHL, Sean Avery's post-NHL life is more glamorous than almost anyone's. He interned for Vogue during his playing career. He's been a model, a Dancing With the Stars contestant and now is a Hamptons real estate developer. In the fall, he's marrying supermodel Hilary Rhoda.

Not too shabby for a guy best remembered for perpetrating the most obnoxious move in hockey history when he irritated Martin Brodeur into insanity

Universal

The Eddie Lebec Trophy (Top Fictional Hockey Player): Adam Sandler as Happy Gilmore: Never forget. Happy is a hockey player, not a golfer. Never forget. Adam Sandler could win this award every year. Happy Gilmore was the only player to ever take off his skate and try to stab somebody.

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The Bieber Award (Canadian Celebrity Who Isn't An Actual NHL Fan): Ryan Reynolds:
Though Justin Bieber says he's really into hockey, fans don't seem to buy it, largely because of his antics in the Blackhawks' locker room  in 2013.

Ryan Reynolds is from Vancouver. We saw him on the ice in Just Friends and Van Wilder. How are we to believe he isn't an NHL fan? He said so himself! While promoting The Woman in Gold, Reynolds confessed to E! News that he's not a hockey fan and that's the reason he had to leave Canada. There are conflicting reports. He's spoken out of both sides of his mouth. Doing press for Green Lantern, he said he's a "die-hard Canucks fan." He also got in a minor spat with the Boston Bruins, for whom he purchased a round of shots, which were refused following the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals.

Watch the 2015 NHL Awards today at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. on NBC Sports Network.

(E! and the NBC Sports Network are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)