Red & Black Hockey
Entries with the tag: Tony+Hand
Hall of Fame, or popularity contest?
by David Lee on 11/30/08 at 05:25 PM ET
Comments (1)
The other day, Sean Leahy over at Puck Daddy told all of us about Tony Hand and asked if the 4000-point scorer (albeit in Britain’s “elite” league) should be enshrined into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. It’s an interesting read, and one that has parallels to the NFL. I’ll get to that later. For now, here’s a quote to chew on. I’ll reveal the source later.
Halls of Fame are supposed to honor players whose achievements exceed those of their contemporaries and rise to some subjective level of all-time greatness.
All-time greatness, regardless of position or anything else.
The 41-year old Scotsman was drafted by the Edmonton Oilers in 1986. He played three games for the Victoria Cougars of the WHL, registering four goals and four assists before becoming homesick or something like that. While the competition in the BHL isn’t exactly world-class, it’s hard to deny that his stats are impressive. In one season (86-87), he put up 216 (105/111) points in just 35 games, and he broke the 200-point barrier three other times. In seasons that are half as long as an NHL season. All told, he’s got more than 1300 goals and more than 2200 assists. He had more of an impact on the BHL than Gretzky had on the NHL. He has risen to that level of “subjective ... greatness” but he’ll never be enshrined in Toronto.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio has only one full-time kicker enshrined. One! Jan Stanerud It’s all about popularity, and nobody likes kickers. And in the case of Tony Hand, nobody will care because his accomplishments were on an off-off-off Broadway stage.
Filed in: | Red and Black Hockey | Permalink
Tags: Hall+of+Fame, Stephan+Fatsis, Tony+Hand,
