The most gorgeous trophies in football competitions across the world are rewarding enough for teams to give their everything into winning it.
Be it a team trophy or individual ones: the FIFA World Cup trophy clad in 18-carat gold, the very recognisable big-eared UEFA Champions League trophy or French Football’s stunning Balón d’Or trophy, their unparalleled glamour is usually associated with victory of the highest order.
Quite similarly, the individual award trophies for the Canadian Premier League have also lived up to being absolutely beautiful, but in its own unconventional manner.
Each award for its respective category is a unique piece of Inuit art soapstone carved by indigenous artists from Kinngait, Nunavut.
The Golden Boot for the top scorer in the competition is a sculpture featuring an Arctic hunter, representing an elite goalscorer’s fearlessness and versatility in front of goal.
Golden Boot trophy
The Golden Glove for the most number of clean sheets is a miniature Canadian Inuit Dog, representing a goalkeeper’s important role of protecting his goal and his prized traits of loyalty and bravery.
Golden Glove trophy
The Player of the Year award features the ‘Nikisuittuq’, a stone landmark build by the Inuit, is a type of Inuksuk whose top stone points towards the North Star.
It is used as an important landmark to navigate and lead a traveller home, sending them in the right direction: much like any winning team’s talisman.
Player of the Year trophy
The award for the best Canadian player under the age of 21 features the image of a polar bear cub, representing the youngster’s potential and promise to turn out to be respected and formidable in his prime.
Best Canadian U21 Player trophy
Lastly, the award for Coach of the Year features a sculpture of an owl, signifying the wise coach’s immense knowledge, experience and intelligence: the traits that are most associated with the nocturnal bird.
Coach of the Year trophy
The trophies are minimalistic and do not offer a candle to the stunning light of the most glamorous trophies up for grabs, but with their uniqueness and significance, are a thing of understated beauty to say the least.
