Other Lester Patrick awards
- Greg Nesteroff
- Jan 10
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 1
The Lester Patrick Award, presented annually to recognize contributions to hockey in the United States, is the best known trophy with Lester’s name, but it’s just one of several that have been presented over the decades in his honour. I’ve enumerated the others below.
Lester Patrick Cup (WHL)
Awarded for the championship of the professional Western Hockey League from 1960 until the league folded in 1974.

Matthew Manor/Hockey Hall of Fame
The award was previously known as the President’s Cup and there is some debate whether the name change came before or after Lester’s death. Wikipedia and other websites say it was after, but a story in the Calgary Albertan indicated the league’s directors approved the move unanimously on May 12, 1960, and that Lester “was contacted immediately following the annual meeting for approval of the use of his name on the cup. Mr. Patrick was pleased and immediately gave his consent.” Yet the announcement wasn’t made until after his death on June 1 of that year. If the change came prior to that, it was presumably with knowledge of Lester’s declining health.
The cup is now on display at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. The recipients were:
1960-61: Portland Buckaroos
1961-62: Edmonton Flyers
1962-63: San Francisco Seals
1963-64: San Francisco Seals
1964-65: Portland Buckaroos
1965-66: Victoria Maple Leafs
1966-67: Seattle Totems
1967-68: Seattle Totems
1968-69: Vancouver Canucks
1969-70: Vancouver Canucks
1970-71: Portland Buckaroos
1971-72: Denver Spurs
1972-73: Phoenix Roadrunners
1973-74: Phoenix Roadrunners
Lester’s grandson Glenn Patrick won the Lester Patrick Cup playing for Denver in 1972.
In 2010, at the request of the Portland Winterhawks of the (major junior) WHL, the Hockey Hall of Fame allowed the cup to travel to Portland for a reunion of the Buckaroos of the (pro) WHL, who won the league championship twice.
“Nobody ever asks about this cup,” Winterhawks game operations manager Steve Wasson told the Oregonian at the time. “It would be easier to get the Stanley Cup here because it travels all the time.”
Assistant curator Izak Westgate, who accompanied the trophy from Toronto to Portland, said he’d never heard of anyone else requesting the Lester Patrick Cup. “We get requests from time to time for certain older trophies for tributes, but never this particular cup,” he said, adding that it had not travelled since the Hall of Fame acquired it in 1974.
While most trophies in the hall had custom travel cases, no such case existed for the Lester Patrick Cup, so Westgate had to find one that fit.
Lester Patrick Trophy (NYMetJHL)
The first award I can find in Lester’s name was presented for the playoff championship of New York’s Metropolitan junior league, from at least 1933-52. I can’t find any specifics about it, but here are some of the winners:
1933-34: Jamaica Red Wings
1934-35: Jamaica Red Wings
1935-36: Van Cortland Club
1936-37: Manhattan Arrows
1937-38: Westchester Rangers
1938-39: Unknown
1939-40: Sands Point Tigers
1940-41: Unknown
1941-42: Boston Olympics Juniors
1942-43: Brooklyn Torpedoes
1943-44: Sands Point Tigers
1944-45: Jamaica Hawks
1945-46: Unknown
1946-47: Manhattan Arrows
1947-48: Manhattan Arrows and Brooklyn Torpedoes (co-winners)
1948-49: Unknown
1949-50: Manhattan Arrows
1950-51: Unknown
1951-52: Jamaica Hawks
Lester Patrick Trophy (WIHL)
Beginning in 1955-56, the Western International Hockey League planned to present its regular season champion with this award, donated by Crown Life Insurance. This senior league included teams from Nelson, BC (where Lester and brother Frank once played and won a provincial championship) and Spokane (which until a few seasons prior had played in the same arena as the city’s PCHA team of 1916-17).
The trophy was intended to replace the Shore-Montgomery trophy, donated in 1946 by movie stars Dinah Shore and George Montgomery, which a newspaper reported as “apparently misplaced in Spokane three seasons back.” However, a month after the announcement of the new trophy in Lester’s name, Spokane Flyers manager Roy McBride received a call from a local jewelry store that was going out of business: “The trophy had been left there in 1951 — for engraving — and no one had ever picked it up.” (Today it’s in the museum in Trail, BC.)
As a result, the Shore-Montgomery trophy was placed back into circulation and the new Lester Patrick trophy instead went to the league’s leading scorer. Nelson’s Lee Hyssop was the first winner. Nelson’s Brian DeBiasio and Spokane’s Ken Gustafson each won it four times before the league folded in 1987, but I can’t swear that it was actually presented beyond 1980. I don’t know where the trophy is today and can’t find a photo of it either.
Miscellaneous
• From at least 1935-61, the Frank and Lester Patrick Trophy went to the house league hockey championship team at Stanstead College in Quebec.
• In 1937, a Lester Patrick trophy was awarded for the pee wee championship of Winnipeg.
• In 1939, the New Edinburgh Rovers, champions of the Ottawa and District Amateur Hockey Association, were expected to be presented with the Lester Patrick Trophy by New York Rovers coach Frank Boucher “in recognition of their fine performance.”
• In 1946, Jerry Toppazzini won the Lester Patrick trophy as leading scorer of his midget league in Copper Cliff, Ont. Toppazzini later had something in common with Lester: both were emergency goaltenders in the NHL. Lester’s famous appearance came in the 1928 Stanley Cup final. Toppazini’s came in 1960 with the Chicago Black Hawks. He was the last position player to fill in as a goaltender.
• In 1951, a Lester Patrick trophy went to the most improved pee wee player in New Haven, Conn. (Lester’s son Lynn had established the minor hockey program there.)
Updated on April 1, 2025 to add the 2010 travels of the Lester Patrick Cup to Oregon.
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