It’s Hockey Hall of Fame day, with an announcement of the class of 2023 coming this afternoon.
None of the guys you’re about to read about are going to be part of it.
I’m pretty sure on that. Granted, we do get the occasional Guy Carbonneau-level surprise, thanks to a committee that never tells us what it talks about or how close any of the candidates come. Still, it’s not all that hard to guess who is or isn’t being considered, and lots of very good players fall into that latter list.
That’s what today is about. While the committee debates the Hall of Fame, we’re here to celebrate the Hall of Very Good. We did this last year, honoring names like Saku Koivu, Eric Desjardins and Tim Kerr. This year, we’re back with a new list of 20 names, each alongside the team they represented best.
As with last time, this isn’t the place to argue borderline cases. If you want to fight about Rod Brind’Amour or Henrik Zetterberg, you’re in the wrong place. In fact, this isn’t about fighting at all. We did the negatives on Monday; today is all good vibes, as we build a team of players who weren’t good enough to be legitimate HHOF cases but are still worth celebrating.
Hockey fans throw “Hall of Very Good” around as an insult, using it to diminish a player’s HHOF case. Not today, though. Today is about remembering some guys, and remembering that you don’t have to be Hall-of-Fame-worthy to have been all sorts of fun to watch. Many of these are based on your suggestions from last year’s column, so keep the nominations coming in the comments section.
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