Jarome Iginla headlined the five players and one executive
enshrined Monday night — a year later than originally intended because of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
The former captain of the Calgary Flames was joined by
Marian Hossa, Kevin Lowe, Doug Wilson and Canadian women’s national team goalie
Kim St-Pierre, while Ken Holland went in as a builder to round out the group
voted in by the hall’s 18-member selection committee nearly 17 months ago.
“A career in hockey is a series of exciting chapters where
you learn and grow from a wide-eyed rookie to a seasoned veteran,” Iginla said.
“And then in a blink of an eye, you’re done. When I look back on those
chapters, each reminds me of so many things I have to say thank you for.”
A mainstay with the Flames from 1996 to 2013, Iginla led his
team in scoring 11 times, winning the Maurice Richard Trophy as the NHL’s top
goal-scorer twice.
The Edmonton native, who also grabbed the Art Ross Trophy as
the league’s top point-getter in 2001-02, combined to register 625 goals and
exactly 1,300 points in 1,554 games in a career that included four other NHL
stops.
Iginla got close to winning the Stanley Cup with Calgary in
2004, but the power forward couldn’t quite get over the hump in a hard-fought
series against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Iginla did, however, have plenty of
success on the international stage. He became the first Black athlete to win
gold at a Winter Olympics when he helped Canada end a 50-year drought at the
2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.
Iginla also registered one of the most famous assists in his
country’s history by setting up Sidney Crosby’s golden goal at the 2010 Games
in Vancouver.
“It was truly, truly awesome,” he said of the moment.
Iginla joined Grant Fuhr, Canadian women’s national team
player Angela James and trailblazer Willie O’Ree, who went in as a builder, as
the fourth Black person enshrined.
“Being a young Black hockey player, it was important for me
to see other Black players in the NHL,” Iginla. “In my first year in hockey as
a seven-year-old, a kid came up to me and said, ‘Why are you playing hockey?’
Over the years I would hear, ‘What are your chances of playing in the NHL?
There’s not many Black players.’”
The induction ceremony usually takes place in a plaza
attached to the Hall of Fame in downtown Toronto, but this year’s event was
held across the street at the larger Meridian Hall.
Hossa is the only player in NHL history to play in three
straight Cup finals with three different teams. He finally got his hands on
hockey’s holy grail in 2010 with the Chicago Blackhawks after losing the title
series as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2008 and the Detroit Red Wings
in 2009. He played for a total of five teams, registering 525 goals and 1,134
points in 1,309 games.
“Growing up in a communist Czechoslovakia, I didn’t know
much about the National Hockey League,” said Hossa. “My early dreams focused
entirely on playing for my country. But everything changed when I got my hands
on a VHS tape of Wayne Gretzky. I was mesmerized.”
Unlike some of their 2020 classmates — Iginla and Hossa were
elected in their first year of eligibility — Lowe and Wilson had to bide their
time before getting the hall call after retiring. Wilson waited 24 years while
Lowe’s patience stretched over 19 springs.
Lowe, 62, won five Cups in his 13 seasons with the Edmonton
Oilers, but was overshadowed by the offensive exploits of teammates like
Gretzky, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey and Jari Kurri. The seventh player from the
Oilers’ dynasty elected to the hall, he won a sixth title with the New York
Rangers in 1994.
“Over the years since I retired, people would ask me how I
felt about not being in the Hall of Fame,” Lowe said. “I’d say, ‘You know, six
Stanley Cups is OK. I have enough personal satisfaction.’ Well, I was lying.”
Wilson played 14 seasons with Chicago, winning the Norris
Trophy as the league’s top defenseman in 1982. Traded to the expansion San Jose
Sharks in 1991, the Ottawa native played his final two seasons on the West
Coast — he was the first captain in franchise history — before later moving
into the front office, where he’s served as GM since 2003.
The eighth woman — and first female goaltender — enshrined,
St-Pierre played boys hockey until the age of 18. She went onto star for McGill
University’s women’s team before helping Canada capture three Olympic gold
medals and five world championships.
With his playing career over and a young family to feed in
the mid-1980s, Holland’s mother suggested her son get a job selling vacuum
cleaners to pay the bills. He didn’t listen and eventually joined Detroit as a
scout before working his way up to assistant GM. Holland was promoted into the
GM role in 1997, and native spent 22 seasons in the post, guiding Detroit to
three Cups.
Now the general manager of the Edmonton Oilers, he pointed
out Tuesday will be exactly 41 years since he made his NHL debut as a player
for the Hartford Whalers.
“I was 25 years old, the opportunity of a lifetime,” said
Holland, now 66. “After the first period, I felt I’m here to stay. Second period,
I gave up five goals, down 6-1 going into the third period, I’m sitting in the
intermission thinking to myself, ‘Ken, you’re never going to be in the National
League league ever again.’
“I guess you paraphrase an old expression: ‘Hockey has been
very, very good to me after I stopped trying to play it.’”-AP
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