The Hall of Fame
Posted 8:14 AM ET | Comments 1
There have been several heated Podcasts recently about players deserving (or not) entry into the Hockey Hall of Fame. rnrnSome of the contributors have taken very very strident positions against candidates and then contradicted their own arguments when applying it to other players who they feel are Hall worthy or in reasoning why some players are already in. rnrnNow, everyone is entitles to their own opinion and everyone is entitled to be inconsistent in their arguments and vague in the application of statistics as having merit or not...BUT...there are some things that have been missed repeatedly in these discussions. rnrnThis is the HOCKEY Hall of Fame. Not the NHL Hall of Fame. Players are inducted for the totality of their career and impact on the game...not just their NHL career. Players are recognized for more than JUST their statistics and the hardware that they won. An example I always fall back on is Bill Barber. Barber was an excellent two way wing for his entire career. He was a key member of a team that was two consecutive Stanley Cups and appeared in a third consecutive final. He was a team captain. He then became a key member of the scouting staff and a successful coach at both the AHL and NHL level. This is the Resume that gets you considered for the Hall of Fame. Could he miss out...yes. Would that be a shame...yes. But it is harder to find holes in his resume when you actually listen to the people who played with him. rnrnPlayers like Darryl Sittler who never won a Stanley Cup, who were never the best at their position in their career.... they get nominated and inducted for reasons other than just numbers and hardware. (I always thought Sittler was one of the best at his position stuck on an bad team) Sittler could have been said to be a compiler...but he was the best player on his team and every team keyed on him. He represented Canada on numerous occasions in international play, oh, and he set the record for points in a game. I don't begrudge Sittler being in the Hall, but he is in and therefore other players with similar careers (adjusted for the era that they play in) should also be at least considered. rnrnSo, Mark Recchi... a bit of a compiler but also a key off-ice contributor to several cup teams. Daniel Alfredsson...just in international play he has a gold and silver Olympic medal (captain of both teams), 2 silver and 2 bronze World Championship medals (captain of all four teams). Was he the "best" player on all of those teams? maybe not...but he was the captain...you cannot take that away from him or minimize it. Oh, he also scored 444 NHL goals and has 1157 NHL points. Did he win a cup...no. He was a league all star many times and won the Messier and King Clancy and Calder. rnrnWhat does all of this mean? The Hall of Fame takes into consideration more than just what happens in the NHL (or should). Players who have long careers consistency is going to be considered. International play should be considered. But how a player is seen off the ice by his pears/coaches/management is also a factor. Winning a Cup, lots of individual awards...that is all nice and makes the process easier, but are not the mandatory factors that some people have made them out to be.
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