The induction ceremonies can be watched tonight beginning at 7:30pm ET on NHL Net US and TSN in Canada.
from Scott Burnside and Pierre LeBrun of ESPN,
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s too bad NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman weren’t at the fan forum leading up to Monday’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony, especially given the pessimism that currently surrounds the labor talks. It’s too bad the two leaders couldn’t have seen firsthand the kind of special bond that exists between fans and players -- in this case, Hall of Fame inductees Joe Sakic, Adam Oates, Pavel Bure and Mats Sundin -- the kind of relationship the lockout puts at risk.
Several fans told Bure that he was the reason they became hockey followers. Another fan spoke with reverence at a memory of Sakic stopping during a Stanley Cup celebration to get his young son a drink of water.
Many of the 250 or so fans crammed into the Great Hall at the Hockey Hall of Fame in downtown Toronto were sporting jerseys with the inductees’ names on the back.
Funny that during an hourlong question-and-answer session Sunday, an annual event since 1999, when Wayne Gretzky was inducted, not one question was asked about the lockout. It was certainly a measure of the respect that the fans have for the four inductees and maybe, just maybe, a reflection of the anger and apathy that threatens the game during the second lockout in the past eight years.
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