NHL award ballots will be made public for first time this season

We’ll be able to scrutinize individual ballots for NHL awards for the first time this year as part of a new measure supporting transparency by the Professional Hockey Writers Association. The organization, which represents journalists who cover the NHL, announced the change Friday.

“After an internal debate that stretched over many months, PHWA Members voted 81.3 percent in favor of full transparency, in a run-off conducted over a two-week period this March,” the PHWA says in a statement. “This decision will result in the publication of each of the approximately 170 ballots, within days of the NHL Awards ceremony in Las Vegas in late June.”

The PHWA votes annually on the NHL’s biggest awards, including the Hart, Norris, Calder, Selke, Masterton, Lady Byng and Conn Smythe. In the past, only the overall results were revealed with voters’ individual ballots shielded from the public.

This move should be very interesting for fans, who will be able to see which players each voter included on their ballots. Award season is a time of great debate no matter what, but this should add to the discussion as voters will have to defend their picks publicly for the first time.