Winners: Mario Lemieux, Ice Hockey

1988 - Feature Story

If there were doubts about his status as Canada’s top male athlete for 1988, Pittsburgh Penguins’ centre Mario Lemieux put all queries to rest two weeks after he was named the Lionel Conacher Award recipient. In a game against the New Jersey Devils, Lemieux, 23 years old, scored eight points and became the first NHL player to score a goal in all five game situations of even-strength, power play, shorthanded, penalty shot and empty net. Two weeks earlier, Lemieux had been voted Canada’s top male athlete for 1988 after an NHL season that included 70 goals and 98 assists for 168 points, earning his first Art Ross Trophy as NHL leading scorer while snapping Wayne Gretzky’s seven-year stranglehold on the award. The total also made Lemieux just the second player to average more than two points a game in a season. Lemieux also took home the 1988 Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player.

1993 - Feature Story

Mario Lemieux was enjoying yet another outstanding season before being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease early in 1993. After treatment, he came back late in the season to lead the Penguins on a NHL record 17-game winning streak, also securing his fourth NHL scoring title and second Hart Trophy as league most valuable player.

Career Highlights

• 2002 Gold Medal playing for Canada at the Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City
• 1991, 1992 Conn Smythe Trophy
• 1988, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997 Art Ross Trophy (NHL scoring champion)
• 1988, 1993, 1996 Hart Trophy (Most Valuable Player in the NHL)
• 1988, 1993 Lionel Conacher Award (Canada’s male athlete of the year)