The Puck Stops Here

Last week's retirement of Cassie Campbell (here is TSN's story) leads me to think about a potential problem that the Hockey Hall of Fame will have. Eventually, some of the best women players of all time will have to be inducted. If they were men who played equally dominant careers, I imagine Cassie Campbell, Danielle Goyette, Cammi Granato, Hayley Wickenheiser and Manon Rheaume would all lead up this generation of women who deserve hall of fame induction (and there are a couple more players who are possibilities). Since the introduction of women's hockey into the Olympics in 1998, we have seen the first elite women's competition worldwide. We have seen the first class of women who have been able to have legitimate careers playing the game. Now they are starting to retire (with the exception of Rheaume who retired in 2000 and has been thus far ignored by the hall of fame committee) and they should find their ways to the Hall of Fame.

This creates problems for the Hall of Fame committee since it hasn't made the most inspired picks in the last couple years. Cam Neely and Dick Duff are questionable inductions of the last couple years. They have left deserving people like Doug Gilmour, Dino Ciccarelli, Phil Housley and Mark Howe out. The last couple years were a great opportunity to induct these players, since there were not too many retiring players who deserved induction. The class of 2007 hall of fame induction will have to sort through the first year of eligibility of Mark Messier, Scott Stevens, Al MacInnis, Adam Oates, Igor Larionov and Ron Francis. That alone will leave a backlog of qualified inductees for a few years. The hall of fame can only induct four players a year. Lately, they seem to waste some of those inductions on less qualified players. They will also want to induct some builders (those fine folks who brought us the lockout - maybe not all builders are as guilty as Harley Hotchkiss but it leaves a bad taste) and it has been a while since a referee or linesman has been inducted. The last referee inducted was Andy Van Hellemond in 1999. Maybe they will decide its time to induct Bruce Hood or Swede Knox or Ray Scapinello (for example). I think that women will be another group of largely ignored potential inductees (see also Russians - though they did induct Valeri Kharlamov in 2005).

In the best case, these elite retiring women will further increase the backlog of qualified inductees to the hall of fame in the next few years. In the worst case, they will be largely ignored - as has happened so far. Manon Rheaume has been eligible for the hall since 2003. Have they seriously considered her yet? Why not? First woman in the NHL and an elite goalie among the women. What is lacking for her hall of fame induction?