I was fortunate this year to be invited to the Hockey Hall of Fame (HHOF) Induction ceremonies. The invitation came through Jim Gregory who is a long-time family friend and one of the nicest people you could ever meet. Jim has a long history in hockey and was the General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1970s. He went on from there to become an executive with the NHL where he is still employed. He is actually the chair of the Hall of Fame selection committee and was finally included in this esteemed group.
While managing the Leafs, Jim actually pulled together an impressive lineup with Darryl Sittler, Lanny McDonald, Borje Salming, Ian Turnbull and Mike Palmateer. He might have been able to build a championship team but the owner Harold Ballard pulled the rug from under him to bring back an old crony, Punch Imlach. Imlach dismantled that team and the Leafs went through 15 years of awful teams. The Toronto Sun has an excellent bio on Jim Gregory.
And it worked out that the Class of 2007 was probably one of the most stellar groups to go to the Hall: Mark Messier, Ron Francis, Scott Stevens and Al MacInnis. Some are saying it's the best group ever inducted in a single year.
Saturday night was a reception held at the HHOF for Jim and was attended by family, friends and colleagues. Gary Bettman and Colin Campbell represented the NHL. Some former players who played under Jim attended included Sittler, Salming and McDonald. Salming looked like he could step out on the ice and play with the big boys. Red Kelly who coached under Jim was there as were several ex-Leaf GMs, Gerry MacNamara, Gord Stellick, and Cliff Fletcher. Johnny McLellan's widow (he coached the Leafs under Jim) came out. I spotted a few broadcasters, Harry Neal and I think Howard Berger. It was a great night and a good opportunity to mingle compared to the following night.
Although we were fortunate to get tickets for the ceremony, our tickets did not get us into the Great Hall were the proceedings took place, Instead we were in the actual HHOF watching over video feeds. The place was packed. There was a reception before the ceremony with great food.
I was able to get some photos off the video which you can see below. Mark Messier was the last to be given a tribute and to speak. All the inductees were quite emotional but Messier was a wreck within 3 minutes. He spoke the longest, I think for over 15 minutes. He could barely get through his speech. I captured just a very small bit of it which you can see below. Messier was quite humorous and joked that he was glad to spend time with Gregory on the weekend. "I finally met somebody who was crying more times than me this weekend." Messier opened with a story how he and his family were coming into downtown Toronto from the airport and their car was stopped at a traffic light when an older gentleman spied him while crossing the street.Messier had the window down, so the man leaned in close and said (Messier did this in an authentic Canadian accent), "Messier, eh? You're here for that old-timers' game." It was a priceless and humble moment and had the place in stitches.
Afterwards they all came down to the HHOF main area where we were situated to sign the induction book and pose for pictures. Joining them were a number of HHOF members including, Johnny Bower, Darryl Sittler, Marcel Pronovost, Clark Gillies and Borje Salming. In the crush I was able to take a few photos. There were so many hockey personalities there to honour the group, former teammate, coaches and managers of the 4 players. It was an incredibly emotional evening and I'm still trying to sort through it all in my mind. ESPN has a great post on the event.
