JR Ewing

Was blown away that Edmonton would do that to a city, to a province and to a country. I remember it transcended sports and was the lead topic for days on the news in the USA even. I remember hearing people blame Pocklington, blaming Bruce Mcnall and Janet Jones. I had returned from three and a half years in Germany just weeks before the trade and couldn't understand it. Still after all of this time it still makes no sense.

You should have seen what it was like living in Edmonton in those days. A sort of stunned disbelief, panic, and hatred washed over everybody. It was disbelief that somebody would trade the best player in the world during the prime of his career, panic that he wouldn't be the last, and hatred for Janet Jones.

JR

@JR Ewing When I was growing up, street hockey was all the rage. We would have tourny's set up to see which part of the city was had the dominant team. We played in school playgrounds, so there was no "car" but heard that growing up many, many times. It's actually a treasured part of my childhood that yelling of "car". Didn't know it at the time, it was just common occurance.

Our street games were violent. Full checking, hacking...all of it. We played with those orange balls that would damn near kill ya when they hit you square in the nuts. I few times, I thought I was gonna die from the pain...LOL!

I played with a bunch of Habs fans, they all wore Habs jersey's, I refused and wore a Clarke #16. We had set break out plays, set offensive plays to take andvante of our individual skill sets. I was never a big scorer, I patterned my game after Clarke, tireless worker retreiving pucks, setting up other...and my cardio was just superior, could fly up and down the playing surface and never seemed to tire. Nobody could hang with my cardio, and I took full advantage of it.

We won the mythical city championship 3 times, but then our left winger Charlie found a huge garbage bag full of weed, and well, other things took precedence....LOL!

LOL!!!

A whole garbage bag?

Yeah, I think I'd have had to retire from street hockey at that point, too.

JR

August 9...

In 1988, it was the day that Peter Pocklington kind of crushed my spirit. Our family was on vacation when we saw the news.

In 2004, it was the day that, tied with the birth of my son, was the greatest of my life: the birth of my daughter.

JR

My favourite position was always Goalie, I loved the challenge of it. But we mostly played in my friend's basement, so no getting socked with wet sopping tennis balls! It may have been due to the rainy weather days here,so we kept it inside. For some reason, we never thought to have any padding or mask, just a stick & glove worked. (Might have had knee pads).

When I was about 10, we moved from Ontario to Edmonton. Those balls, in that weather, achieve a kind of diamond-hard quality, and when they hit you, your ancestors felt it. I'm sure the NSA has satellite photos of prisoners in North Korean prison camps being tortured in this way.

JR

My sons had a goal made from pieces of lumber and chicken wire. They'd drag it out into the street, and like magic, the next thing you knew there'd be half a dozen kids with them.

I remember JR's ""CAR!!!"".

Those scenes are gone around here.

Not one kid on my block, growing up, was goalie, so there were no goal pads. And when tennis balls (or those orange stone which they call balls) get cold or wet, it's like being kicked in the shins with an ice pick. A friend and I scoured the neighbourhood and found some couch cushions, so we took them home, removed the covers, cut them into the shape of golie pads, and secured them to our legs with some athletic wrap. It was great! No pain; just a soft THUD when a save was made.

No mask or can, mind you. For some reason, we never thought about that until we got racked in the nuts.

Now, they sell street hockey pads. No need to take the steps we were forced into.

JR

When I grew up, practically every other street had a road hockey game going on. Now you see the odd one, but it's a real nostalgic feeling when you do. Drive through Toronto and you'll see more "It is unlawful to play road hockey on this street" signs than you will actual games.

I never see any kids playing street hockey here. None. Never. "CAR!!!" is dead and gone.

JR

Not related specifically to Derek Boogaard, but appropriate to the conversation:

Injuries from Teen Fighting Deal a Blow to IQ

A new Florida State University study has found that adolescent boys who are hurt in just two physical fights suffer a loss in IQ that is roughly equivalent to missing an entire year of school. Girls experience a similar loss of IQ after only a single fighting-related injury.

The findings are significant because decreases in IQ are associated with lower educational achievement and occupational performance, mental disorders, behavioral problems and even longevity, the researchers said.

... The researchers found that each fighting-related injury resulted in a loss of 1.62 IQ points for boys, while girls lost an average of 3.02 IQ points, even after controlling for changes in socio-economic status, age and race for both genders. Previous studies have indicated that missing a single year of school is associated with a loss of 2 to 4 IQ points.

The impact on IQ may be even greater when considering only head injuries, the researchers said. The data they studied took into account all fighting-related physical injuries.

http://www.universityherald.com/articles/4114/20130803/injuries-teen-fighting-deal-blow-iq.htm

For the sake of saying it, Derek Boogaard had 34 fights just when he was 16... Just think of the damage which was done to his brain during this period.

JR

Thanks for joining in.

Alexander Mogilny

(YES) 1. Was he ever commonly thought of as the best player in hockey while he played?

No, definitely not. Just off the top of my head there's Jagr, Sakic, Lidstrom, Hull, Recchi, Modano, Leetch all ahead of him, and that's just a quick list.

(YES) 2. Was he ever commonly thought of as the best player at his position while he played?

During Mogilny's time, look at the RW in the NHL:

Jaromir Jagr - 5 Art Ross, 1 Hart, 3 Lindsay, 7 time 1st All-Star, scored 516 more points during same period

Brett Hull - 3 Richard, 1 Hart, 1 Lindsay, 3 time 1st All-Star, outscored Mogilny

Selanne - 3 Richard, 2 time 1st All-Star, 2 time 2nd All-Star, outscored Mogilny

That's just three guy. Alexander Mogilny was terrific, but was not the best RW in hockey.

(YES) 5. Did he ever have an impact on a deep playoff run?

2000 New Jersey Devils

In 2000, Mogilny had a depth role and was the Devils 3 line RW, only scoring 7 points. In general, Mogilny's scoring really dropped in the playoffs over the course of his career, going from 1.04 PPG down to 0.69 in the playoffs. He just can't get a point here, either.

(YES) 17. Did the player bring bring positive and intense focus on the game of hockey?

Alexander Mogilny was the first Russian player to defect from the Soviet Union in May 1989, first non-North American to lead the league in goals scored (along with Teemu Selänne from

Finland

), first Russian to be named to the

NHL All-Star Team

, first Russian to be named captain of an NHL team, and is (as of the end of the

2008–09 season

) the second

all-time Russian scorer in the NHL

. Mogilny was the second Russian player to score

1000 points in the NHL

, reaching the milestone just a few days after former linemate Sergei Fedorov.

(YES) 18. Was the player innovative, inspire a new style of play, or cause the league to change any of its rules as a result of the way he played?

see above #17

Mogilny was dynamite, but did not innovate the game or find a way to exploit the sport to the extent that the league needed to change its rules.

I'm counting 11 Yes ...so does this make him a HoF'er???? based on his accomplishments...I say YES!

I have to respectfully disagree with your assessment of Mogilny, for the reasons outlined above. I count 6, which is a fine career.

How about the rest of you?

JR

@JR Ewing

Great topic! Give me some time to read through all the posts before I attempt to embarress myself!!! (Just kidding)

I saw that someone already mention Forsberg and Lindros. Off the top of my head Forsberg ----> yes and by your criteria Lindros --->No (which will generate alot of debate among the Flyers faithful on here)......

Great topic!

Great. I hope to see you jump in here, too, with more players. Pretty soon, I think we can start really coming up with a concensus on each of the players in question, and then start adding them to the HF.net HOF.

JR

@JR Ewing

Love doing the little write up about the Cyclone.

BTW dont you ever sleep, lol?

I'll sleep when I'm dead.

JR

Re all-time records: I've wrestled with the issue over time, but finally decided long ago not to use them in this sort of system (and trust me, this has evolved over the years).

One thing which is important when creating something like this is that it treats players from all eras fairly, and if you add a section for records then it pretty much rules out anybody who wasn't born from about 1955 to 1965, give or take a year or two on each side.

a] All of those lists are completely dominated by players who had their prime years in the 80s thru the early 90s.

b] Schedule lengths are so disparate through the league's history, making such lists completely biased towards the modern player as well.

c] The NHL didn't even begin tracking power play goals until 1967-68, making the all-time leader's list even more titled towards later players. If it was tracked previously, the numbers would possibly have been badly skewed in the opposite direction. Until 1957, a power play lasted the full two minutes, regardless of how many goals were scored.

So, when you use a record like PP goals, etc, it tells you more about the era in which a guy played than it does about the quality of his play. Yes, we can compare him to the other players of his time and note that he was better at it than the them, but it gives no ability to compare him to the rest of the pool.

It's the same reason that you don't see things like the Olympics, Canada Cup, etc on the list as well. I would LOVE to have that on there, but anybody from pre-1972 doesn't have the opportunity to score points there.

Fun trivia - Andreychuk scored more PPG than anybody, but Ray Bourque was on the ice for 361 more PPG than Andreychuk, and 83 more than #2 (Al MacInnis). The forward who was on the ice for the most PPG: Wayne Gretzky (1162).

JR

@JR Ewing "Career like his are ones where the sum is greater than the whole of its parts: never had a great season, but wound up with great career numbers."

I'd put Mike Gartner in the same catagory. The ultimate in consistancy, but it was usually 35 goals about average, but Mike also had a big year when he went 50/52 for 102 pts. He also had 48, 46 and a 44 goal seasons, people don't give him enough credit for being elite because of all the 30-40 seasons.

Dave did have the one big year, 1994 for the Leafs he had 53 goals and 99 points. Strange, I don't remember him getting 99 pts. I'm guessing those were the Mogilny days for Toronto, don't recall at the moment.

Yeah, Gartner's another one of those guys, too.

JR

Absolutely true...I always wondered why Beane got so much credit & glory when his info/decision-making were based on Bill James' formulas & principles.

Standing on the shoulders of giants... Not the first time, won't be the last.

JR

That would be fun, trying to do some of the older players....AND, it's August...nothing better to do, except watch my TIgers kick some butt!!

I like the idea of just sticking to your criteria, that way we have a significant strong base to cross compare the totals.

Exactly. This is prime summer stuff here.

" I got turned on to his stuff while messing around at the public library when I was about 9, so around 1982 or so, and I then had to read everything of his that I could get my hands."

Waaait a minute here, when other kids were playing with marbles and playing tag, you were knee deep in stats?? HA HA...that is great!!

I played marbles and tag and baseball, rode every square inch of Trenton, Ontario on my bike, ran around in the woods with a jack knife and a BB gun all of that stuff, too. But, I also made sure to get to the library as much as I could because I liked to read, too.

And man... Kids are sheltered now.

JR

@JR Ewing

He is such a hard case. Nobody with anywhere near his 640 goals will be kept out of the hall, and who is to say that the guy who scores 35 goals for fifteen years is not as worthy as the guy who scores fifty for ten? I understand peak value versus career value. He really was never thought of as a star while playing, only two all star games, never first or second team but SIX HUNDRED AND FOURTY GOALS!! What the hell do you do abut that??

Career like his are ones where the sum is greater than the whole of its parts: never had a great season, but wound up with great career numbers. It couldn't be any different than the best players in the history of the game. If Gretzky had quit after ten years, he'd be a shoe-in HOFer, and his results on this list would likely be exactly the same. The first ten years are largely about establishing the HOF argument, and the rest of the career is more about padding those numbers.

Andreychuk built his case with padding.

JR

Dave Andreychuk

10. Did many regard his physical play/hitting to be an intimidating factor? (NOTE: We're not looking for pests here)Not really, but he was a master in front of the net and would push his way into position ala holmstrom

17. Did the player bring bring positive and intense focus on the game of hockey? Yes

18. Was the player innovative, inspire a new style of play, or cause the league to change any of its rules as a result of the way he played? Yes. He parked his big butt in front of the net and became the all time master of setting up in front of the net and tipping pucks.

so for andreychuk that is a total of 8 or 9 points, depending on definition of a category or two, so he is at the least in the top end of the 5-8. I think 9, 10 should be he rule of thumb for a HOFer. To me Andreychuk is the ultimate borderline, his body f work way outnumbers any one season, kind of the Don Sutton of Hockey, Sutton won 15 games a year for 20 years until he had numbers too good to not put in, 300 wins and 3000 strikeouts. Andreychuk lumbered out in front of the net and scored 34-38 goals a year forever until his overall numbers are so ridiculous that it is impossible to look at the body of work and not see a hall of famer. I am torn with him, 8,9 votes for him sounds about right. IMHO anyone below him is not a HOFer, anyone above likely is.

See, and I wouldn't even give him a point in any of those.

10. He stuck his butt in one spot and didn't move. He was definitely really good with the puck right there, but he wasn't a physical beast who intimidate the opposition. With that question, I'm looking for animals; bulls. We're looking for Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay. Coiled springs lubricated with testosterone.

17. He was well known in the cities he played in, but he didn't exactly transcend the sport.

18. Andreychuk was definitely not the first guy to do that, so I don't see a point for innovation.

I agree, though: definitely not a clear-cut HOFer.

JR

Honestly? I see the Browns precedent in the NFL as coming into play in these situations. I agree that Katz was essentially blackmailing the city, but at the same time there was no way the NHL was going without a team in Edmonton and - as far as I am concerned - there is no way Canada would allow the legacy of Wayne Gretzky to be moved to Seattle. So, even if Katz ripped the roster away, I never saw "The Oilers" leaving.

The fact that the City backed down as much as they have - as many American cities have - is disgusting. One of many things to admire in Ed Snider is that the Spectrum was built privately and the current building was built privately (city donated land and site prep). He just removed the Spectrum privately and built Xfinity Live privately.

Yeah, Katz has no interest in moving the team. He has a great thing going, and he's not going to screw it up by moving the team where he can't get fans misty-eyed with old photos of Wayne Gretzky holding Cups and Mark Messier back when he still had hair. Besides, like you said, the NHL would never consider it anyway. People in Canada (sometimes fairly) bitch endlessly about Gary Bettman, but he did everything he could to keep the Oilers in Edmonton back when the Canadian dollar was so low, and Peter Pocklington was trying to sell the team to Les Alexander down in Houston.

The Philly Sports Complex (baseball/basketball/hockey/football all across the street from each other) could arguably make the list as best sports complex in the world, too.

We are pretty darn awesome, after all

That's the way it should be done. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think it's right for a man to pay for what it his.

JR

@JR Ewing

Peter Forsberg

? 4. Did the player ever lead the league in any key stats? (G, A, Pts, W, SO, etc)

Yes 13. Are many any other players with similar statistics in the HHOF?

Yes 17. Did the player bring bring positive and intense focus on the game of hockey?

? 18. Was the player innovative, inspire a new style of play, or cause the league to change any of its rules as a result of the way he played?

4 - Yes. Forsberg led the NHL in A and Pts in 2003.

13 - Perhaps a minor point, but of the ten most similar players, 3 are in the HOF. I don't know if that's "many", but it's still impressive.

17 - At first I was going to disagree, on the basis that Forsberg isn't exactly a household name among non-hockey fans the way Gretzky is, or the way Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali or Tiger Woods are for non-fans of their sport. But then, I have to admit, the man is on a postage stamp in his country. Not exactly a common honour, and it does brings positive and intense focus to hockey.

18 - My vote would be for no, but it's extremely tough to get one here.

There really should be a category for playing through numerous injuries

I really really really think this is an area best avoided. We can say "Man, that guy would have been great if he wasn't injured", but there's really no stopping once you start. It's hypothesizing about what might have been rather than focusing on what the player was. Orr WAS great despite the knees, Bossy and Lemieux were great despite their bad backs, etc, etc, etc.

JR

Hockey's just too expensive for many families. It was for mine when I was that age too (thus, I played baseball), and it's only gotten worse in the last 30 years.

JR

Am I reading right that of the 30 NHL teams, only 11 are operating at a loss? A loss of about $132M?

With the top two teams in the league bringing in an operating surplus of over $150M and the top 10 with a surplus of over $300M combined?

Edmonton - tacitly threatening to leave despite sellout crowds - has an operating surplus of $16.2M.

Better shut this league down. It's out of control. No way it can continue to operate like that. Blame the union.

Of course they will never let Edmonton move to Seattle.

That's what expansion's for.

And it's about to get bigger in the next few years.

• The land the arena is being built upon was owned by, yup, Oilers owner Daryl Katz. The city will buy that from him, naturally.
  
• The construction company the city is paying to build the arena is owned by Daryl Katz.
  
• The firm hired by the city to design the arena? What? Daryl Katz owns that?
  
• Who gets the money from naming rights, concessions, parking and non-hockey events? Daryl Katz.
  
• The city will own the arena, and will have to pay for 100% of the maintenance on the building. All savings for Katz.
  

The arena will be built, it will be damn near 100% taxpayer funded, and Katz will receive most, if not all, of the profits... This is what has happened in virtually every community where this sort of thing comes up. As an Oilers fan, the last thing I'm worried about is the team to moving to Seattle, that's for sure. The last thing the BoG would approve is moving a revenue rich team to an unsure market. This has all just been part of tightening the screws in Edmonton.

JR

Another thing I'd like to propose:

If we're going to go through the process of voting, I'd like to ensure that we don't just concentrate on the last two or three decades, and make an attempt to look at players from decades gone by. For those who know about these guys, it's a chance to fill other people in about them, to spread knowledge of the game. For those who don't know about some of those players, it can help create more appreciation for different eras of hockey, those players, and help provide context for how to view modern players as well.

JR

@JR Ewing

Good lord I knew I liked you. I have about everything Bill James ever wrote in the eighties thru the mid nineties. His Whatever happened t the Hall of Fame is a top twenty or so favorite of mine. Speaking of Hall of Fame, he certainly belongs in one somewhere if you just go by his own Keltner list.

"The Politics of Glory" was a fantastic book, even by James' standards. I got turned on to his stuff while messing around at the public library when I was about 9, so around 1982 or so, and I then had to read everything of his that I could get my hands. Changed the way I thought about baseball, and opened up my mind to how I thought about hockey and how I couldn't help but noticed other people talked about the game as well. At a young age, it was a good introduction into the world of logical and ordered thinking. I keep an updated version of "The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract" next my bed, and thumb through it regularly. It's not stretching the point to say that I treasure it, beaten up as it's become. Notes in the margins, etc, etc, etc... I love it.

The black ink test of James also was fantastic, hockeyreference.com has their own slightly different version but it comes out fairly well on most players as far as rating them goes.

Another James innovation was similarities scores which again hockeyreference.com has listed, not sure of their exact formula and they have the occasional eyebrow raising selection but overall Bill James did more for statistical analysis than any man alive.

Baseball men (and many writers) have hated his kind for years, but I feel his impact on the game will be understood in time. Billy Beane is credited as a genius, had a book written in no small part about him, a movie, etc. Mostly it's because he's a handsome insider, and James is a neck-beard outsider, and if people think Beane had baseball men chafing, just think of what they thought of a chubby night security guard from a pork and beans plant telling them how wrong they were.

Nice to see another fan.

JR

@JR Ewing I can see how 18 would be a tough cookie to crack. Off the top of my head, I'd say Gretzky, Brodeur, Harvey and Orr would qualify there. I wonder if Patrick Roy's excessively bulky goaltending equpment and jersey would qualify for the rule change part?

Yeah, not a lot of players can cut the mustard on that one. The Bobby Hull banana curve comes to mind. Some others players have had their doings inspire rules changes, but they're dubious honours:

Sean Avery: the "wave your arms and hands around like a jackass" rule.

Rob Ray: jersey tie-downs for fights, because the goof stripped himself down every time. Man, that was cheap.

JR

haha. So far this forum seems like it could handle the poll

I am up for this. I like the discussions.

Will we be skipping the obvious hall of fame guys? I mean autoinducting them?

Obviously we do not need to have a discussion on the merits of the top 20 players of all time lol.

On the one hand, it seems like not THE best use of our time to go through the process of auto-inducting players like Gretzky, Orr, Howe, etc.

However, on the other hand, where do we draw the line on who to drop the voting process for?

That's not a loaded question but, rather, an honest one.

JR

I am assuming we can use our own Criteria? Certain intangibles mean more to people than others

Edit, and would we have a panel and vote in process?

I'm guessing you didn't get past the thread title. lol

Anyway, I certainly don't mean to impose MY way of looking at these things on to everybody else. There's any number of ways we could go about. I proposed a Keltner List approach as its quick and allows things to move along. If others wish to put the players to vote, that's certainly an option too, though it would definitely increase the time (which isn't always bad) between players inductions. We could create a series of polls and have them run for a certain amount of time (a week, for example) and then create a minimum percentage of votes for players to require in order to be inducted. This would be a chance for people to make their case (well reasoned, idiotic and everything in between). My only fear is that discussion may be diminished due to that approach, but it could work very well, too. Also, the chance for jackass votes exists, as well.

JR