Not long after defenseman Jaccob Slavin won his first Lady Byng Trophy in 2021, a fellow Carolina Hurricanes player approached him to say congratulations — and also to offer a lighthearted chirp.“It’s kind of embarrassing, right?” said the teammate, whom Slavin declined to name. “You’re a defenseman. You’re supposed to be rough and tough and cross-check people.”Handed out every NHL season since 1925, the Lady Byng — in its physical form, a two-handled silver cup atop a wooden base — goes to the player “adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability,” according to the league.This subjective criteria for the award, voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association, has contributed to a stigma surrounding the Lady Byng for decades. The result is perhaps the most peculiar trophy in professional sports: one that not every player wants to win.In 2003, after publicly declaring that he didn’t even want the award in the first place, then-Toronto Maple Leafs winger Alexander Mogilny skipped the ceremony when he was named the winner. The next year, candidates Brad Richards and Martin St. Louis, both with the Tampa Bay Lightning, argued over who desired it less until assistant coach Craig Ramsay told Richards to stop, explaining that they were enjoying the privilege of playing in the NHL and should be honored to receive any trophy whatsoever. After the scolding, according to a syndicated Sporting News article, Richards — who ultimately won — and St. Louis decided they “really wanted it.”Frank Boucher, who spent most of his Hall-of-Fame career with the New York Rangers in the 1920s and ‘30s, won the Lady Byng a record seven times. Montreal’s Cole Caufield, meanwhile, was announced as the 2025-26 recipient on Friday after a 51-goal season. With no foolproof method to measure gentlemanly conduct, voters from the Professional Hockey Writers Association tend to prefer players with low penalty minutes yet high offensive production. Caufield, for example, committed only seven minor penalties in the year.To many, though, playing a physical, scrum-filled game like hockey while displaying gentlemanly conduct feels like an antithetical concept. In hockey, clean play — especially if it reflects a hesitance to battle for pucks or positioning in hard areas of the ice, like around the net or in the corners — can be equated with softness: the opposite of what any player strives to be.Former NHLer Mike Foligno, owner of 2,047 career penalty minutes, told his sons, now-Minnesota Wild forwards Marcus and Nick, that the Lady Byng was the only award they weren’t allowed to win as hockey players. Sure enough, neither has finished above 43rd in award voting in 34 combined seasons of NHL experience: Nick received one second-place vote in 2015, the only time either brother has appeared on a ballot.“Marcus and I have to play a certain brand to be impactful,” Nick Foligno said. “These other guys are so good they can play (sportsmanlike) and be impactful.”He called the ability to do both impressive. And, with a smile, Nick added, “Maybe we’re a little jealous at the end of the day, too.”The Lady Byng Trophy, seen here during NHL All-Star week in Feb. 2024, has been around for more than a century. (Carlos Osorio / NHLI via Getty Images)Were it not for the British monarchy, the Lady Byng Trophy would not exist. In 1921, King George V appointed Lord Julian Byng as Governor-General of Canada. Upon moving to the country, Byng and his wife, Evelyn — thereafter known as Lady Byng — became hockey fans. Frank Boucher recalled meeting her multiple times with his brothers, including Hall of Famer George Boucher, at the Government House in their hometown of Ottawa.“George, the tough guy in the Boucher family, thought she was simply wonderful,” Boucher wrote in his memoir, “When the Rangers Were Young,” recounting how Lady Byng would have her gardener cut flowers for the Bouchers to take home after every visit.