Hockey Hall of Fame class of 2022 had a hard climb

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The 2022 Hockey Hall Of Fame class is shy on Stanley Cup winners, but full of compelling stories.

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For the first time since 2010, when Dino Ciccarelli and female stars Angela James and Cammi Granato went in, the selection committee did not pick a player who had hoisted the Cup.

Yet Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Daniel Alfredsson and Roberto Luongo were all thousand-game players who influenced two Canadian hockey markets.

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And Herb Carnegie, who never lived to see today’s minority players push back so hard for their place in the game that he first initiated, goes in as a builder. The five, and ageless Finnish national women’s team forward Riikka Sallinen, were named Monday by the Hall selection committee at its annual meeting in Toronto. Induction night is Nov. 14.

To no one’s surprise, the identical twin Sedins were chosen in their first year of eligibility, as was loquacious netminder Luongo, who spent time with them in Vancouver. Alfredsson’s five-year wait ended amid a long campaign in Ottawa to elect the Senators’ popular captain.

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But, of course, the settling of the Alfie question, meant more grumbling around the hockey world about others being snubbed. Alexander Mogilny is still outside the Yonge St. temple, despite having scored more goals than Alfredsson, and having won a Cup. Also, his two Russian contemporaries, Pavel Bure and Sergei Fedorov, were admitted years ago. Two impressive first-year forwards, Henrik Zetterberg and Rick Nash, now join the long waiting list as well.

And, once more, the push from fans for Team Canada hero Paul Henderson — in this 50^th anniversary year of the Summit Series—did not make the committee vote.

A Hall of Fame moment and a Hall of Fame career are two different things, and Henderson and his teammates are going to have to be content getting named its ‘Team of the 20th Century’.

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Only one of the 18 committee members can put a name forward and 14 have to vote by secret ballot to approve.

Former Leafs executive and now TSN commentator Dave Poulin described center Henrik and left-wing Daniel as “two brains that think as one.” Trying to tell them apart on the ice was hard, even with different sweater numbers

“It blew my mind (at practice), how they always knew where the other was.” Luongo said. “When I got traded there (from Florida) I had a tough time (identifying their red heads off the ice). It was always a 50-50 guess. After a while you could see one was more handsome than the other, but I won’t say whom. It’s great to see they’re in management now (special advisors to the Canucks).”

They had 1,000-plus points each and didn’t rock the boat for 17 seasons, though they wanted a lot more than making one Cup final.

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“The goal was to put our head down and put in work every day,” Henrik said. “When we retired, we could say we got the most out of our talent.”

Alfredsson thanked his many backers in Bytown, and the betting is he’ll take more of a role with the team following the passing for former owner Eugene Melnyk and a proposed new downtown arena. When it got to be 8 pm in Sweden, Alfredsson figured he’d been passed over for another year, until selection committee chairman Mike Gartner’s call came through.

“I’d like to think it was my playing career (instead of the public outcry that kept his name in the Hall debate), but it does feel special to have the connection with the city and the fans.”

Luongo weathered some long years with the expansion Panthers and heavy scrutiny in Vancouver when they didn’t win a Cup, but kept it light with his alter-ego Twitter handle, Strombone1.

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“That was a big part of showing who I was and dealing with a lot of (pressure), to make fun of myself. It was very therapeutic for me,” he said.

Luongo saw plenty of changes in his position in nearly 20 years, up to last season’s league mandate for more offence. He’s now helping the Panthers goalies navigate those waters.

“It’s harder for them, but it’s exciting hockey, the type we want to see. The thing I’m happy about is we didn’t have to make the nets bigger, which was the discussion when I was playing, but we did have to create more offence. As a goalie, it’s just about adapting. That helped me stay in the league a long time, not to rely on just what I knew, but to improve.”

Carnegie died in 2012 at age 92, with a school and arena named for him in his native Toronto, but with the path forward for other Black players and minorities still to be determined. He was immensely talented in the post-war game, but racism kept him out of the NHL. When the New York Rangers offered him a contract, at less money than he made in senior hockey in Quebec, he stayed put.

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Willie O’Ree eventually broke the color barrier in the early ’60s, but Carnegie kept advocating for more Canadians from non-traditional hockey backgrounds to learn to skate.

“He would have his wry smile today,” said daughter Bernice, who helped update the book on his life, A Fly In A Pail Of Milk. “I couldn’t be more delighted. Our phone is ringing off the hook, the e-mails are piling up and we’re crying.

“People don’t understand the man my grandfather was,” added Rane Carnegie, whom Herb helped coach in his own hockey career. “The grace he carried through his life, he was so grateful to make the world a better place. This is the highest honour. He’s in the place he belongs.”

Sallinen joined the Finnish national team in 1989, nine years before she would score in the first Olympic women’s hockey game at the 1998 Nagano Games (and lead the tournament in scoring with 12 points in six games). She earned a bronze medal, retired after the 2002 Games, was inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame in 2010, but came back to the national side in 2013 after giving birth to three children. She played two more Olympics.

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