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Twenty-eight-year old goaltender Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens has been named the winner of the Lou Marsh Trophy and the Lionel Conacher Award as Canada’s best male athlete of the year for 2015. The Lou Marsh Trophy is handed out by the Toronto Star newspaper while the Conacher Award is voted on by members of the Canadian Press (CP). Price was named on 53 per cent of the ballots for the Conacher Award after his excellent NHL season in 2014/15. Price said it was an honour to win the awards especially since he was recognized as the best athlete for all sports not just hockey.

Sprinter Andre De Grasse of the Toronto area came in second in the voting at 28 per cent while freestyle skier Mikael Kingsbury also received recognition votes along with NBA basketball player Andrew Wiggins, NHL player Connor McDavid, tennis player Milos Raonic and rugby player Daniel Tailliferrer Hauman van der Merwe. Raonic had won the award the previous two years and Price of Vancouver, British Columbia is the first hockey player to take it home since 2010, when Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins won it for the third time. However, Price is the first goalie to be named the winner since the award was launched back in 1932.

Price was the top goalie in the NHL last season with a goals-against average of 1.96 and a save percentage of 93.3. His fine play helped the Canadiens to a second-place finish in the 30-team league. He was so dominant last season that he took home four individual trophies at the end of the season. He was named the league’s most valuable player and won the Hart Memorial Trophy for it. He was also named the best player in the league by his fellow players for the Ted Lindsay Trophy. In addition, he captured the Vezina Trophy for being the league’s top goaltender and shared the Jennings Trophy with Corey Crawford of the Chicago Blackhawks for the best goals-against average.

Price was named the best goaltender in Canadian junior hockey back in 2007 after being selected fifth overall by Montreal in the 2005 NHL Draft. Price also made his pro debut with the American Hockey League’s Hamilton Bulldogs in 2007 and helped the club win the Calder Cup championship by being named the MVP of the playoffs. Price’s career in Montreal seemed to turn the corner during the 2013/14 campaign when he was named to his homeland’s Olympic team. He earned the job as the starting goaltender and led Canada to a gold medal in Sochi, Russia by allowing just three goals against on 106 shots during his team’s five contests.

He allowed just one goal against in the knockout stage of the games and shutout Sweden and America in his final two appearances. Price was named the top goalie of the Olympics and his confidence has soared since then. Price believes there’s still room for improvement though. However, he hasn’t had the chance to prove it so far this season since he’s missed most of it due to an injury. To show how valuable he is to the Canadiens, the team has won just one of its last 10 games while he’s been sidelined. He managed to play a dozen games before the injury and won 10 of them with a goals-against average of 2.06 and a save percentage of 93.4.