Lionel Conacher Award

The winner was originally selected following a straight vote of each writer's top choice. Golfer Ross Somerville won the inaugural poll after becoming the first Canadian to win the United States Amateur Championship.^[6] By 1936, the poll was conducted via a points system where each writer ranked their top three choices. Their first choice received three points, second choice two, and third choice one point.^[7] This points system has remained since. In 2001 golfer Mike Weir defeated hockey player Joe Sakic by two points in one of the closest votes in the award's history. He did so despite earning 13 fewer first place votes than Sakic.^[8]

Historically, the poll has not been limited to Canadians. Foreign-born athletes who were outstanding performers in Canadian sport have also gained consideration. Football player Fritz Hanson, a native of Minnesota, was named top athlete in 1939,^[9] while American Don Jones finished fourth in voting in 1971 on the strength of his performances with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League.^[10] The poll became increasingly dominated by professional athletes since the 1960s – only three amateurs won the award between 1965 and 1984.^[11]

Winners have represented a broad spectrum of sports. Individual sport winners include weightlifter Doug Hepburn in 1953,^[12] figure skater Kurt Browning in 1990 and 1991,^[13] and most recently, gymnast Kyle Shewfelt in 2004.^[14] Participants in one of North America's "major league" team sports won each year between 2005 and 2010. National Hockey League player Sidney Crosby and National Basketball Association player Steve Nash have each won three times overall and Major League Baseball player Justin Morneau won in 2008.^[15] Overall, hockey players have finished at the top of the annual polls the most times at 26. Track and field is second with 13 winners and football third with 10.

• Bobbie Rosenfeld Award
• Canadian Press Team of the Year Award
• Velma Springstead Trophy

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lionel Conacher Award.

^a Denotes athlete also won the Northern Star Award as Canadian athlete of the year.^[87]

^b According to the Canadian Press, the award was discontinued between 1942 and 1945 because "sports writers decided athletes cannot rate as heroes while young Canadian pilots, paratroopers and corvette gunners fought for freedom in the shadow of death".^[2]

^c No winner was announced for the years 1950 or 1999 as the Canadian Press instead voted for athlete of the half-century and century, respectively.^[26]

• Greatest Sporting Moments: The Bobbie Rosenfeld and Lionel Conacher Award Winners in the Virtual Museum of Canada