On Sunday and Monday morning the Selection Committee will meet again to determine who inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as the class of 2015. For those of you who haven’t read my articles about this before, I would like to emphasise that the Hockey Hall of Fame itself does not make the selection themselves as they appoint a 19 member group to nominate and deliberate all of those who are eligible to be inducted. This group consists of members of the media, NHL, CHL, IIHF, and a select group of other honoured members of the Hockey Hall of Fame.
This year’s selection committee consists of:
John Davidson (Chairman)
Scotty Bowman
David Branch
Colin Campbell
Brian Burke
Bobby Clarke
Eric Duhatschek
Mike Emrick
Michael Farber
Marc de Foy
Mike Gartner
Anders Hedberg
Igor Larionov
David Poile
Lanny MacDonald
Luc Robitaille
Peter Stastny
Bill Torrey
(Jim Gregory also sits in on the Selection Committee as Chairman Emeritus but has no vote)
Take a long hard look at these names. These hockey giants have forgotten more about hockey then I’ll ever know. So when it comes to selecting which players belongs amongst the best of the best, I have no trouble deferring that decision to these gentlemen. As for the nominees this year I will outline a few of the guys who will be considered. In the past I have written a blog that makes the case for certain individuals who have yet to be inducted.
Here is the list and links of those I have already written about:
Steve Larmer (Player)
Reggie Leach (Player)
Alexander Mogilny (Player)
Pat Quinn (Builder)
Kerry Fraser (Referee)
Paul Henderson (Player)
Chris Osgood (Player)
Marguerite Norris (Builder)
Eric Lindros (Player)
Curtis Joseph (Player)
Theo Fleury (Player)
Carl Brewer (Player)
Don Cherry (Builder)
March Recchi (Player)
Nicklas Lidstrom (Player)
Chris Pronger (Player)
Sergei Fedorov (Player)
To go along with this list, I will outline some of other candidates that have yet to be covered in my “Making the Case” Series.
Ron Hextall: Hextall is someone who is lacking in some team and individual success but is known for helping change how goalies play the game. He was the first goalie to score a goal in a game where he purposely shot the puck into the other net (Billy Smith scored a goal by accident) and his aggressiveness to play the puck was something completely different for his generation. He did win the Conn Smythe trophy in a losing effort in 1987. Now the GM of the Philadelphia Flyers, Hextall went to the Stanley Cup finals with that club again in 1997 against Detroit. Ironically his goaltending mate with the Flyers that season was Garth Snow who is now a fellow GM in charge of the New York Islanders.
Dave Andreychuk: Like many others who had to wait, Andreychuk was a solid star player in the NHL but was never “the man” on any given team. He holds the NHL record for the most power play goals in a career with 274 as well as being in the 600 goal club with 640 goals. To go along with this he is the 2nd highest scoring right winger in NHL history. Like Ray Bourque, he won his only Stanley Cup in his last year in the NHL as captain of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Phil Housley: Housely had a prolific scoring careering the NHL spread out over 23 years in the league. He is 2nd in all-time career points by an American born player with 1,232 just behind Mike Modano who surpassed him with 1,374. Keep in mind this was when in a completely different era of development for USA hockey and Housely was putting up these numbers as a defenseman. As a pioneer for USA hockey, the fact that he was a star in the NHL dictates how much he has impacted the game. The point against him however is that he has the dubious record of playing the most games in NHL history without winning the Stanley Cup. In fact he had only reached the Final once in his career in 1998 where his Capitals were swept by the Red Wings.
Bill Hay: Mr. Hay is someone you likely will not recognize if you are not from a generation who saw the “Original Six” play. However if Mr. Hay gets inducted he will be inducted as a builder into the Hall of Fame. Hay played 8 seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks where he would win the Calder Trophy in 1960 and win his only Stanley Cup in 1961. After retiring, he went into the business world where he would develop an acumen to return to the Hockey world as an executive. He would eventually become the president and COO of Hockey Canada and then became the president and COO of the Calgary Flames in 1991. In 1998, he became the CEO and Chairman of the Board for the Hockey Hall of Fame where he over saw numerous renovations to the facility and improved relations with the NHL, NHLPA, IIHF, and Hockey Canada. He held his post with the HHOF until 2013 giving way to the late Pat Quinn.
There are many more people who will be considered but those on my list and the ones I have outlined are some of the guys who have been, or will be mentioned over the next few day. So let me know what you guy think. Who is your selections to the Hockey Hall of Fame? Usually there are up to 4 players and 1 builder or referee so you can email those to me at
[email protected], tweet them to me @kirshenblatt, or leave a comment in the comment section.
Thanks for reading.
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