A tour of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto is an excellent experience. It celebrates those who made the game better. However, HockeySpy.ca believes hockey needs another hall for those who have made it considerably worse. Welcome to our Hockey Hall of Shame, where hockey’s worst finally receive the recognition they deserve:
CHARTER INDUCTEES:
Alan Eagleson — The Corruption Wing
The obvious inaugural inductee. He exploited the players he was supposed to represent, pleaded guilty to fraud in Canada and the United States, served prison time and resigned from the actual Hockey Hall of Fame before it could expel him.
Harold Ballard — The Ownership Wing
Convicted on 47 counts involving fraud, theft and tax evasion—and presided over one of the bleakest eras in Maple Leafs history.
Graham James — The Predator Wing
A category that must be handled seriously, without the usual HockeySpy humour. His abuse of young players represents hockey’s most horrifying institutional failure.
The 2010 Chicago Blackhawks organization — The Cover-Up Wing
Team executives failed to act promptly after player Kyle Beach reported being sexually assaulted by video coach Brad Aldrich during the 2010 playoffs, allowing Aldrich to remain with the organization through its Stanley Cup celebration.
Hockey Canada’s former leadership — The Institutional Disgrace Wing
After quietly settling a lawsuit concerning an alleged 2018 World Junior team sexual assault, Hockey Canada admitted maintaining a fund—financed partly through player-registration fees—to settle uninsured sexual-abuse claims. Secret settlement funds, inadequate accountability and years of protecting the organization’s reputation instead of confronting hockey’s cultural problems.
LESS CRIMINAL BUT STILL SHAMEFUL CATEGORIES;
Gary Bettman — Lifetime Achievement Award
Lockouts, franchise instability, endless expansion, a ridiculous playoff format, not to mention transforming the Stanley Cup playoffs into a tournament roughly the length of the Hundred Years’ War.
The Arizona Coyotes ownership saga — The Wandering Franchise Exhibit
One franchise, several owners, multiple arenas and endless announcements claiming everything was finally settled.
The NHL Department of Player Safety — Wheel of Justice Award
For repeatedly handing out wildly inconsistent punishments for similar offences, making NHL discipline appear more like a game of chance than a system of justice. The NHL only compounded the absurdity by appointing former goon George Parros to run the department responsible for protecting players from—among other things—current goons. The exhibit includes an actual spinning wheel featuring laughable minimum fines, one-game slap-on-the-wrist decisions, four games, five games—or no discipline at all.
The NHL’s concussion era — The See-No-Evil Wing
Dedicated to everyone who insisted hockey had no concussion problem while retired players struggled with its consequences.
The 2004–05 NHL lockout — The Empty Arena Exhibit
The only major North American league to erase an entire season while arguing over how to divide billions of dollars.
The shootout — The Skills-Competition-Disguised-as-Hockey Wing
For deciding a team game with an individual breakaway contest that eliminates passing, forechecking, defence and virtually everything else that makes hockey hockey. It is the equivalent of settling a tied baseball game with a home-run derby.
The loser point — The Mathematical Fraud Exhibit
For awarding teams a point for losing, provided they postpone the loss until long enough. It distorts the standings by making some games worth two points and others worth three, while allowing mediocre teams to enjoy artificial success.
The Cheap Shots and Incredible Stupidity Wing:
Marty McSorley for clubbing Donald Brashear in the head with his stick.
Todd Bertuzzi for the payback-is-a-bitch attack on Steve Moore.
Raffi Torres for his repeated dangerous hits and suspensions.
Matt Cooke for a career compilation that could serve as a how-to-be-an-idiot instruction video.
Dale Hunter for attacking Pierre Turgeon after Turgeon scored a key goal in the 1993 playoffs.
Billy Coutu—the only NHL player banned for life—for attacking officials in 1927.
Billy Taylor, Don Gallinger—expelled for betting on their own Boston team to lose in 1948. (Reinstated by the NHL in 1970)
NOMINEES FOR FUTURE INDUCTION:
Not every offender has disgraced the game sufficiently to earn full induction. Some merely embarrassed themselves, their organization or the sport. For now, these unfortunate souls receive a Dishonourable Mention while the selection committee reviews the details:
Mike Milbury — For attacking a fan in the stands with the fan’s own shoe, then spending years attacking the New York Islanders’ roster with equally devastating results.
Sean Avery — For treating an NHL career as one prolonged attempt to discover exactly how obnoxious one player could become.
Tim Peel — For being caught on a live microphone admitting that he “wanted to get” a penalty against Nashville, thereby saying aloud what every angry hockey fan already suspected about referees: They even it out.
Kerry Fraser — For failing to call Wayne Gretzky’s high stick on Doug Gilmour during the 1993 Campbell Conference Final—a non-call Leafs fans have graciously agreed to forget sometime around the year 2193.
Punch Imlach — For selecting fictional Japanese superstar Taro Tsujimoto in the 1974 NHL draft, proving that scouting reports are unnecessary when the player doesn’t exist.
Mike Keenan — For leaving behind enough feuds, trades and damaged relationships to earn the nickname “Iron Mike”—although “Unemployed Again Mike” was just as accurate.
John Tortorella — For turning news conferences, practices and occasional trips into an opposing team’s dressing-room hallway into his own form of combat.
The Toronto Maple Leafs — For losing to a 42-year-old emergency goaltender who worked for them as a Zamboni driver.
The Vancouver Canucks — For hiring Bruce Boudreau, publicly undermining him and then leaving him behind the bench for weeks while everyone knew his replacement was coming.
The Buffalo Sabres — For turning “rebuilding” from a temporary hockey strategy into a permanent organizational identity.
The NHL’s situation room — For examining a goal from 37 camera angles for eight minutes and somehow leaving everyone less certain than they were before the review began.
FoxTrax’s glowing puck — For addressing hockey’s supposed visibility problem by making the puck resemble a radioactive comet.
Shane Pinto— For earning a 41-game suspension for sports-wagering activities in a league that spends much of every broadcast encouraging everyone else to gamble—although the NHL found no evidence that Pinto bet on his Senators team or other NHL games.
