crowncubed:

“Rookie of the Year” is a telling award. The list of recipients of the Calder Memorial Trophy is glittered with hockey greats from past and present including Bobby Orr, Mario Lemieux, Teemu Selanne and Peter Forsberg. Today, for a player to be honored as the best rookie in the National Hockey League, he cannot have played more than 25 games in a preceding season in any major league nor can he have played six or more games in any two preceding seasons in any major league. The regulations also note that a player cannot qualify for nomination if they are older than 26 years of age before September 15th of the season which they are first eligible. These qualifications are pretty standard for most North American athletics.

Naturally, there is an Elitserien equivalent to the Calder Trophy called Arets Rookie. Unlike the NHL Rookie of the Year that was first awarded at the end of the 1931-1932 season, the Swedish Arets Rookie wasn’t awarded until 1990. In the 22 seasons that the trophy has been awarded, no one has ever won who was not a Swedish citizen and as far as I can tell, the same story goes for the nominees as well. But like it’s NHL counterpart, is also a telling award. Henrik Zetterberg, Loui Eriksson, and Nicklas Backstrom have all been honored with Arets Rookie.

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