Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon, Toronto’s Auston Matthews, and Ryan O’Reilly of St. Louis are the finalists in the running for the 2020 edition of the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, which is intended to recognize NHL players whose superior skills coincide with exceptional sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct. With the NHL set to announce the winner today, maybe a gesture to the 1958 Lady Byng laureate might be in order, Camille Henry, who also happens to have died on a Thursday of this date in 1997, of diabetes, at the age of 64.

The best of Henry’s 14 years in the NHL saw him wearing New York Ranger blue, though he also skated for the Chicago Black Hawks and St. Louis Blues. In addition to the ’58 Lady Byng that recognized his mix of good manners and superior skills, claims for his fame might also include the Calder Trophy he won as the NHL’s top rookie in 1954. They might reference, equally, the chase he took up in 1960 when a high-spirited fan smacked him in the face with his own stick. That incident came a year after the portrait here was taken, or two years after yet another newspaper article made the rounds focussing on his weight, or lack thereof. Spoiler alert: at 24, Henry was on the smaller side, 5’7”, “a scrawny-looking French-Canadian youngster,” as profiled by an unnamed Associated Press correspondent, “who answers to the nickname of Camille the Eel.”

This was January of 1958, when Henry’s 23 goals happened to be more than anyone else had scored in the NHL to that point, ahead of Detroit’s Gordie Howe and Dickie Moore of Montreal. (Both would end up passing Henry by season’s end; he finished the year with 32 to Howe’s 33 and Moore’s 36.)

“Camille weighs about 149 pounds soaking wet,” the AP explained, “which he usually is after most of the games in the bruising, contact-filled sport.”

Henry’s view? “I figure being light helps me,” he said. “I can sometimes squeeze in among the bigger men, get my stick in the way of the puck and get it past the goalie. If I was heavier I might not be able to maneuver so well.”

(Image: Louis Jaques/Library and Archives Canada/e002343730)