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In the past the Canucks waved their flag loudly and proudly around their players’ community work. They should get back to that.
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Published Apr 11, 2026 • Last updated 8 minutes ago • 3 minute read
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Friday the NHL announced he’s the Canucks’ 2026 nominee for the King Clancy Trophy, which recognizes community work by the league’s players. Photo by DARRYL DYCK /THE CANADIAN PRESSArticle content
If you pay any attention to the Vancouver Canucks, you know well by now that Brock Boeser is one of the good guys.
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From the moment he was drafted, stories abounded of the good deeds he’s done: his interest in rescue dogs, the time he took a superfan to prom, his support for Parkinson’s research, his regular visits to B.C. Children’s Hospital.
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Friday the NHL announced he’s the Canucks’ 2026 nominee for the King Clancy Trophy, which recognizes community work by the league’s players.
A lot of Boeser’s work is quiet, but the front-line stuff is notable. He’s a bit of a throwback to the old days of the Canucks, when the players’ work in the community was front and centre.
He’s a good story, one that the team would do wise to channel going forward. With the team’s on-ice fortunes, to put it gently, in transition, how they win over friends around town matters a lot.
But we don’t really know the details in the end. The NHL announced the 32 nominees, as they always do, but the team didn’t make a supplementary announcement on why Boeser’s this year’s nominee. In the past, they’ve generally sent out a press release about what their nominee has been up to.
Evern Boeser himself was pretty quiet on the nomination; with no reporters on this road trip, it’s up to team reporter Olivia McDonald to ask about what it means and the always friendly Boeser smiled and offered a short response in a video released by the team.
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“I’m grateful I can be in this league and make a difference in people’s lives,” he said.
Now in fairness here, the Canucks aren’t the only team to undersell their nominee: at best half of the league’s teams have made note of their nominee on their team website.
Brock Boeser advances the puck against Zakhar Bardakov of the Colorado Avalanche Dec. 2, 2025. A lot of Boeser’s work is quiet, but the front-line stuff is notable. He’s a bit of a throwback to the old days of the Canucks, when the players’ work in the community was front and centre. Photo by Matthew Stockman /Getty Images
The King Clancy is a bit of an odd duck award: it’s not really about hockey, though there’s an element of saying this is what a hockey player should be. It’s been handed out for 38 years, first donated by Harold Ballard in 1988 to recognize a player every year for their work as what Ballard termed as “a humanitarian.”
“It’s no secret that Clancy was one of the top humanitarians,” Ballard said in 1986 about why he was putting forward the new award with the NHL’s blessing. Clancy worked in hockey for 65 years and, before his death in 1986, had worked with Ballard for years, so the nomination made sense. But Ballard was as nasty a person who ever lived: known for his penny-pinching ways as Maple Leafs owner, fighting with his star players, micromanaging his staff and quite possibly turning a blind eye to sexual abuse inside the walls of Maple Leaf Gardens. There were also allegations after his death that he’d abused youths.
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Despite its ugly parentage, the trophy marches on. Three Canucks have won it over the years: the Sedin twins and Trevor Linden. And year after the year, the committee of writers and broadcasters have picked players who have engaged in impressive work in the community. Last year, Panthers captain Sasha Barkov was the winner after he donated $420,000 to a local children’s hospital, a facility he’s spoken openly about visiting more than once.
In the past the Canucks were very vocal about how important community involvement was, with the likes of Pat Quinn, Brian Burke and Mike Gillis all setting the expectation that their players would be visible in their work. It was a win-win deployment of the team’s soft power; having the likes of Linden and the Sedins doing good work all over town did a lot to sustain good will towards the brand, over and above raising up the community, which was the base purpose in all this.
Boeser has talked a lot lately about how important it is for the Canucks to reset their culture; his instincts toward his neighbours should be commended and raised up.
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