Hockey Hall of Fame game has quite a pregame show
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It’s Hockey Hall of Fame weekend here, with the game’s highest honor to be bestowed Monday on former players Luc Robitaille, Steve Yzerman, Brian Leetch and Brett Hull, as well as New Jersey Devils executive Lou Lamoriello.
The festivities got off to a fine start Saturday with the annual Hall of Fame game at the Air Canada Centre. Before the puck was dropped between the Maple Leafs and Red Wings more than a dozen past honorees were introduced and lined up on a blue carpet, where they awaited the soon-to-be inductees.
It was a bit of living history, and if you don’t recognize all of these names, it’s worth looking them up to get an appreciation for them and their accomplishments.
Some walked slowly but all stood tall: Ted Lindsay, Marcel Pronovost, Pierre Pilote, Bobby Hull, Bill Gadsby, Johnny Bower, Fern Flaman, Scotty Bowman, Lanny McDonald, Billy Smith, Borje Salming, Bryan Trottier, Michel Goulet, Peter Stastny and Glenn Anderson were given warm and well-deserved ovations.
Then the class of 2009 was introduced one by one, with Brett Hull stopping to exchange a warm hug with his father, Bobby. The crowd offered a nice “Luuuuc” cheer for Robitaille but saved its loudest cheers for Yzerman, both because there were a lot of Red Wings fans in the audience and because Yzerman is the chief executive of the Canadian men’s hockey team for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.
We’ll have more over the weekend, including a column on Robitaille in Monday’s edition and coverage of his Hall of Fame induction.
-- Helene Elliott, reporting from Toronto