The MacAdam Trophy is presented to the player deemed to be most valuable to his team during the Easy-Stow Senior Hockey League regular season.
History
"Give me a team of Alan MacAdams," observed one NHL coach, "and I'll give you a championship." Such was the ultimate tribute paid to Kings County's most famous hockey player, a man who has been called the best two-way right-winger in Canada's national game.
Joining the Junior Islanders in 1969, following his starry years at Morell High school, Al MacAdam soon impressed coach Jack Hynes as the most dedicated player on his squad, "not the hurrah type, but one who led by example." Scouted by the NHL Flyers even as a teenager, the whole village of Morell turned out for Alan MacAdam Night in September 1972 as their favorite son made his move to the Big Leagues.
In his second pro season, in 1974, Al was called up from the minors to play five regular season games and one playoff game for the Philadelphia Flyers, earning himself the coveted Stanley Cup ring. Characteristic of MacAdam, he refused to wear the ring feeling he had not truly deserved it. For Al, the arrival in the NHL meant much more: "It's a dream come true for a kid who started at the age of four."
In 1974, Al would be traded to the ill-fated California Golden Seals, and quickly established himself as the team's "Mr. Steady" alongside fellow P.E.Islanders Bobby Stewart and Hilliard Graves. Moving to the Cleveland Barons when the California franchise folded, Al made his philosophy of hockey plain to all: "I like to out-think the opposition. What I enjoy most about the game are the big challenges."
Moving to the Minnesota North Star, following the amalgamation of that team and Cleveland, Al MacAdam would play for the Team Canada squad at the 1977 World Championships in Vienna. He would prove to be Canada's most effective forward, swirling around the Luzhniki Rink with linemates Steve Payne and Bobby Smith. Al had truly hit his stride in the Majors.
1979 saw Al MacAdam return as Canada's most outstanding player in the world tournament held at Moscow, playing on a line with North Star Bobby Smith and the explosive Marcel Dionne. Dad, Reg, proudly recalled bumping into a high-level Russian diplomat who assured him, "Yes, Mr. MacAdam, we are very aware of your boy Al and his talents."
The next season, 1980, would prove to be Al's most successful, scoring 42 goals and 51 assists. MacAdam would be named the winner of the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, awarded to the player who best embodies "qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey" (and, it must be added, without fanfare). This coveted NHL Trophy was doubly significant in Al's case, as he was the first Minnesota hockey player so honored in memory of Bill Masterton, the North Star who died in 1968 from injuries suffered in a game with California.
In June 1984, Harry Neale of the Vancouver Canucks landed Al from Lou Nanne's North Stars, where MacAdam had been unhappy about diminished playing time. By 1985, coming to the end of a successful NHL career spanning thirteen years, Al was named the Canucks' "player/assistant coach/co-ordinator" with the Fredericton Express, a team in fact owned by the NHL Nordiques.
While there, now only 33 years of age, Al assumed a job opening at St. Thomas University, as assistant athletics director and head hockey coach. Although the school maintained only 400 men within its enrollment of 1600 students, in 1988, Al would guide the Tommies to its first taste of playoff action in nearly twenty years, and handing his alma mater UPEI Panthers one of its rare defeats along the way, before the Islanders advanced to the national championships.
A scan of his NHL career record reveals 240 goals and 351 assists in NHL action involving 864 games, many of which his most faithful fan wife Anne, would witness. The name of Al MacAdam is a perfect example of what natural talent, unnatural dedication to sport and the strength of family ties can create.
In recent years Al has passed on much of what he has learned as he joined the coaching ranks, including a stint as assistant in Chicago. Al MacAdam continues to offer much to this great game.
