HOHHOF - Early Era - Round 2 thread

[Dangler99*]

I actually don't think the NHA was much "higher" than the PCHA - 10% better, at most. They won more series from the PCHA but the games differential was much closer, and the PCHA actually outscored the NHA in total.

Obviously the level of competition that one achieves their success at should be a major consideration. Lehman and Vezina are pretty close according to most people but I prefer Vezina.

Actually, I was referring to the "big league in the sky"! Sorry for not being straightforward...

 

[seventieslord]

Oh, I get it.

Yes, it's possible that Vezina got the nod earlier because he "got the nod" earlier. Or it could just be that he was better. I think it was more the latter but with this being a pretty inexact science I realize it could be the former too.

 

[Shawa666]

My vote.

Georges Vezina
Joe Malone
Dick Irvin Sr.
Clint Benedict

 

[kaiser matias]

I'm thinking of going for pre-war players in this round. Looking at Finchster's remarks about Bain have me think my choice to select him are a good one. The guy, and his team, helped spread the game out of the Quebec-Montreal-Ottawa region and into the rest of Canada.


Looking at the HHOF's voting pattern regarding the inaugural 1945 class is also telling. Of the 12 players, 9 were dead already, and 3 alive (Bain, Bowie, Ross). Ross obviously had a lengthy post-playing career (he was the manager of the Bruins at the time, and would retire nearly a decade after), and Bowie worked as a ref in NHA and NHL games, so he had some involvment after he stopped playing. Only Bain had no association with the game after his retirement.

Another player I'm looking at is probably an undervalued player here. Hobey Baker may not have the statistical accolades that some would want, but his influence is enough for me to vote him in.

Also going to go back to Bowie, who I voted for in the first round, and an Ottawa player, not sure what one though.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

My vote.

Georges Vezina
Joe Malone
Dick Irvin Sr.
Clint Benedict

Why Dick Irvin Sr so soon? Do you know something about him I don't? (Quite possible, I don't know all that much about him). I actually viewed him as borderline as to whether he would get in at all!

 

[seventieslord]

Irvin would have a case if you included his coaching career. But obviously you don't, so... yeah, i'd be interested to see the case too.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Also going to go back to Bowie, who I voted for in the first round, and an Ottawa player, not sure what one though.

Check out Nighbor's lengthy profile: http://hfboards.com/showpost.php?p=23959895&postcount=22

About halfway down, there is a section called "Main Cog," where a variety of newspapers of the time call Nighbor the main cog to the dynasty's success.

 

[LapierreSports]

I would like to make a case for the Sillery native, "Phantom'' Joe Malone. I will be voting for him. He scored the second most career goals of any player in major hockey's first half-century. What more can you say? 44 goals in a 20 game season, playing on a line with Newsy and Didier Pitre. I think he's a shoe-in for this round being that he is one of the most gifted and prolific goal scorers ever to play the game.

 

[seventieslord]

I would like to make a case for the Sillery native, "Phantom'' Joe Malone. I will be voting for him. He scored the second most career goals of any player in major hockey's first half-century. What more can you say? 44 goals in a 20 game season, playing on a line with Newsy and Didier Pitre. I think he's a shoe-in for this round being that he is one of the most gifted and prolific goal scorers ever to play the game.

Malone is great. But he's far from a shoo-in here. Make sure you are receptive to the cases put forward for the other players.

- Bowie was a one-trick pony just like Malone, but he was even more prolific at it.

- Nighbor was about equally valuable offensively (just more for goalscoring) but was elite offensively and made a much higher contribution to winning.

- Sprague Cleghorn and Clint Benedict are generally regarded as the best defenseman and forward of the time. Should that many forwards be inducted before any goalie or defenseman? Doesn't seem right.

 

[Dreakmur]

44 goals in a 20 game season, playing on a line with Newsy and Didier Pitre.

Russell Bowie scored 39 goals in just 10 games.... playing on a line with two guys you've never heard of

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Malone is great. But he's far from a shoo-in here. Make sure you are receptive to the cases put forward for the other players.

- Bowie was a one-trick pony just like Malone, but he was even more prolific at it.

- Nighbor was about equally valuable offensively (just more for goalscoring) but was elite offensively and made a much higher contribution to winning.

- Sprague Cleghorn and Clint Benedict are generally regarded as the best defenseman and forward of the time. Should that many forwards be inducted before any goalie or defenseman? Doesn't seem right.

I'm with you right up to Benedict.

Malone will get my vote here.

Canadiens1958's recollections and Benedict's induction year have put some real doubt in my mind about voting him in this soon.

 

[pappyline]

Canadiens1958's recollections and Benedict's induction year have put some real doubt in my mind about voting him in this soon.

Me too

 

[seventieslord]

should we be using the timing of a player's induction into the actual hall as evidence for or against a player? I thought this was a separate hall, independent of the HHOF. If we just repeat their mistakes (and not for honest reasons, but literally because that's what they did), then what would be the point of this?

This is OUR hall, not the institution's.

 

[finchster]

should we be using the timing of a player's induction into the actual hall as evidence for or against a player? I thought this was a separate hall, independent of the HHOF. If we just repeat their mistakes (and not for honest reasons, but literally because that's what they did), then what would be the point of this?

This is OUR hall, not the institution's.

Well it is just another piece of evidence for a player. I would guess whomever is voting would decide to put weight into it or not

 

[seventieslord]

Well it is just another piece of evidence for a player. I would guess whomever is voting would decide to put weight into it or not

Well, we're all here to make our cases, and my case is that that way of thinking is garbage.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Well, we're all here to make our cases, and my case is that that way of thinking is garbage.

All evidence available should be used. One man's garbage is another man's treasure.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

Pretty much agree with 70's here. What year the real HOF elected him should be a moot point. The actual HOF has shown itself to be at the mercy of backroom politics on multiple occasions, which calls its credibility into serious question.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Agreed. All we know is that the real Hall of Fame waited a long time to induct Benedict. Since they never publish their reasoning, we have no idea whether it was due to politics, or questions about his ability. If we don't induct Benedict solely because of what the real HOF did, we're setting a dangerous precedent - after all, nobody would argue that Clark Gillies deserves to be in our HOF just because he was inducted in real life.

Are there any objections to Benedict's induction based on his actual playing ability?

 

[Dangler99*]

Yes - absolutely it was!



that's funny actually, the SIHR mailing list just discussed the accounts of this game last week and from what I remember, there are three different accounts of what the score was, and one of them was 10-5 or something.

So I just don't know how seriously I can take this one.

Also, single game accounts are good seasoning, but the main course of any old player bio should be the general description of them. In other words, "he was a very fast skater" easily trumps a newspaper account saying "he skated like the wind tonight".

Here is a well-seasoned meal for you;

http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=821911

Thanks for the link, man. Plenty to digest there. I've been nibbling at it, now and then.

That's an interesting point about the score of that Chicoutimi game. Legends obscure facts, so it's not surprising that a 10-5 score could eventually become 2-0. But if that's all that's been disputed then the essence of the story--that the Canadiens discovered the goalie of the(ir) future in a loss to an amateur team from the boondocks--is still the same?

I'm really baffled by this early-death thing, and struggling to understand how an institution established to honour the game's history would use a more or less random factor as criteria for choosing its honoured members, when I've always assumed historical prominence was the yardstick. Let me see if I've got this straight. I can only guess there's a sympathy factor at play, and the early selection committees had a soft spot. I'm usually pretty cynical about public displays of maudlin sympathy. A few players have had numbers retired because they've met untimely ends--Dan Snyder being the most recent example, I guess--and I think it cheapens the honour for others. But that's just me being a heartless *******.

If the early Hall of Fame was indeed conceived as "Hockey Heaven" then perhaps I've overestimated Vezina. But then I'd have to reevaluate all of them. Art Ross, for example, must have been pretty sensational to buck the trend while a perfectly dead Joe Hall had to wait. And the class of '47 looks pretty healthy to me. So I'm thinking so what if a lot of these guys were already dead when they were immortalized. Maybe it reflects a soft-hearted selection policy, or maybe it's just how the chips fell. Life expectancy and medical science weren't the same back then, and these guys were pursuing a dangerous profession. If the order of induction seems out of step with present-day standards, maybe it's because the concept of "historical prominence" has changed since then. It would be interesting to trace that change backwards before writing it off as sympathy.

As for the Vezina Trophy…well, obviously it was intended as a memorial. But it's significant to me that it not only honours the man but specifically honours his goaltending. I mean there are plenty of other ways the team could have shown its respect. There's no trophy for Joe Hall, who I would have thought would be more likely to receive some kind of memorial based on public sympathy. Morenz, certainly a bigger star and more beloved figure, was given a nice ceremony, but no trophy. Yet the Canadiens decided the most appropriate tribute for Vezina would be to forever link his name to goaltending excellence, when, given the size of his family, a trust fund probably would have been more sensible.

I'm not gonna say that Vezina was greater than Benedict because he has a trophy named after him. But this, and the fact that he was inducted to the Hall of Fame at the earliest opportunity nearly two decades after his death, indicates to me that he left a pretty deep impression on people. Not just fans, but those in the industry. Meanwhile Benedict became a forgotten man. That's a huge difference in peer recognition.

But more power to you if you feel Benedict has been given a raw deal by history and needs revision. Nothing's written in stone.

 

[seventieslord]

Thanks for the link, man. Plenty to digest there. I've been nibbling at it, now and then.

That's an interesting point about the score of that Chicoutimi game. Legends obscure facts, so it's not surprising that a 10-5 score could eventually become 2-0. But if that's all that's been disputed then the essence of the story--that the Canadiens discovered the goalie of the(ir) future in a loss to an amateur team from the boondocks--is still the same?

I'm really baffled by this early-death thing, and struggling to understand how an institution established to honour the game's history would use a more or less random factor as criteria for choosing its honoured members, when I've always assumed historical prominence was the yardstick. Let me see if I've got this straight. I can only guess there's a sympathy factor at play, and the early selection committees had a soft spot. I'm usually pretty cynical about public displays of maudlin sympathy. A few players have had numbers retired because they've met untimely ends--Dan Snyder being the most recent example, I guess--and I think it cheapens the honour for others. But that's just me being a heartless *******.

If the early Hall of Fame was indeed conceived as "Hockey Heaven" then perhaps I've overestimated Vezina. But then I'd have to reevaluate all of them. Art Ross, for example, must have been pretty sensational to buck the trend while a perfectly dead Joe Hall had to wait. And the class of '47 looks pretty healthy to me. So I'm thinking so what if a lot of these guys were already dead when they were immortalized. Maybe it reflects a soft-hearted selection policy, or maybe it's just how the chips fell. Life expectancy and medical science weren't the same back then, and these guys were pursuing a dangerous profession. If the order of induction seems out of step with present-day standards, maybe it's because the concept of "historical prominence" has changed since then. It would be interesting to trace that change backwards before writing it off as sympathy.

As for the Vezina Trophy…well, obviously it was intended as a memorial. But it's significant to me that it not only honours the man but specifically honours his goaltending. I mean there are plenty of other ways the team could have shown its respect. There's no trophy for Joe Hall, who I would have thought would be more likely to receive some kind of memorial based on public sympathy. Morenz, certainly a bigger star and more beloved figure, was given a nice ceremony, but no trophy. Yet the Canadiens decided the most appropriate tribute for Vezina would be to forever link his name to goaltending excellence, when, given the size of his family, a trust fund probably would have been more sensible.

I'm not gonna say that Vezina was greater than Benedict because he has a trophy named after him. But this, and the fact that he was inducted to the Hall of Fame at the earliest opportunity nearly two decades after his death, indicates to me that he left a pretty deep impression on people. Not just fans, but those in the industry. Meanwhile Benedict became a forgotten man. That's a huge difference in peer recognition.

But more power to you if you feel Benedict has been given a raw deal by history and needs revision. Nothing's written in stone.

just a couple little points...

- as I mentioned, the hall started so late, and I'm not criticizing their methods to begin with, because there was already a bevy of guys who were worthy and had to wait. But it does look like they said, "well, there are so many who are eligible, let's start by honouring the ones who are no longer with us."

- I agree with the over-sentimentality in things like number retirement, but there's no turning back. the precedents have been set, and if you don't retire the number of the next all-around good guy who dies young, your organization has no class, they'll say. It's even worse with the Masterton - you just win it for getting a disease now. I want to see Numminens and Lindens and Sundins and St. Louis win the Masterton, not Kessels and Blakes.

- they already had an MVP award when Morenz died and there wasn't a culture of "there should be an award for this and that" that there is today, so it doesn't surprise me that it didn't result in any new awards.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I agree that date of entrance in the actual Hall is worth looking at.

But so far, from what I gather, it seems even anti-Benedict posts seem to say he wasn't inducted for so long because he was basically a "cheater who got away with it?" Basically, flopping to the ice as a goalie was considered "classless."

So you're saying that he had to wait for a while due to perceived poor sportsmanship.

Is that a criteria we wish to use for this Hall?

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I would like to make a case for the Sillery native, "Phantom'' Joe Malone. I will be voting for him. He scored the second most career goals of any player in major hockey's first half-century. What more can you say? 44 goals in a 20 game season, playing on a line with Newsy and Didier Pitre. I think he's a shoe-in for this round being that he is one of the most gifted and prolific goal scorers ever to play the game.

I'm considering Joe Malone for this round too, but he shouldn't be voted in over Nighbor (and not over Bowie either, if you want to show respect for all eras, which I think is the point).

And Malone's NHL record actually makes a very good case for Nighbor:

Malone's goals vs Ottawa with Nighbor: 3 games, 1g
Malone's goals vs Ottawa without Nighbor: 7 games, 23g

Malone's '18 season has become legendary. He scored 44g in 22 games, the highest goals per game pace in NHL history. But even more amazing is that he scored over half of those goals in 7 games against Ottawa when Nighbor was out of the lineup.


Joe Malone again dominated Ottawa when Nighbor could not play:

Winning Streak of Champion Senators Stopped at Nine Straight as Lowly "Bulldogs" Defeated Them 10-4 over Slushy Sheet of Ice. Ottawas Were Without Frank Nighbor and Joe Malone Ran Wild. Scoring Six Goals.

Joe Malone ran wild in the absence of Nighbor and scored 6 goals for Quebec, beating out "Newsy" Lalonde for the league honors.

Malone was giving the Ottawa defense a busy night as Frank Nighbor with his pokecheck was not there to stop up the Quebec captain.

(from nik jr's profile of Nighbor)

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Agreed. All we know is that the real Hall of Fame waited a long time to induct Benedict. Since they never publish their reasoning, we have no idea whether it was due to politics, or questions about his ability. If we don't induct Benedict solely because of what the real HOF did, we're setting a dangerous precedent - after all, nobody would argue that Clark Gillies deserves to be in our HOF just because he was inducted in real life.

Are there any objections to Benedict's induction based on his actual playing ability?

All we know of Benedict's playing ability is either stats or heresay. No one alive today saw him play. Apparently it is agreed that he flopped before flopping was legal which may lead some to surmise he needed to cheat to compete.

Personally, with the way the game was played and the limit that was put on the goalies at the time, I wonder if their importance was as great as it later became.

Not sure if this account of Benedict's "problems" has been posted before:

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=1d1fce20-2f95-4608-b047-fc0c9f8c5d3a

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

All we know of Benedict's playing ability is either stats or heresay. No one alive today saw him play. Apparently it is agreed that he flopped before flopping was legal which may lead some to surmise he needed to cheat to compete.

Personally, with the way the game was played and the limit that was put on the goalies at the time, I wonder if their importance was as great as it later became.

Not sure if this account of Benedict's "problems" has been posted before:

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=1d1fce20-2f95-4608-b047-fc0c9f8c5d3a

Wow, thanks for the link. I think we now know why it took so long for Benedict to be inducted by the actual HHOF.

Now, the only question is what that means for us going forward with our Hall. I just hope whatever happens, we're consistent in applying standards. (For instance, what does this mean for Terry Sawchuk and his alcohol problems?)

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Wow, thanks for the link. I think we now know why it took so long for Benedict to be inducted by the actual HHOF.

Now, the only question is what that means for us going forward with our Hall. I just hope whatever happens, we're consistent in applying standards. (For instance, what does this mean for Terry Sawchuk and his alcohol problems?)

Just wondering, is there any evidence that Sawchuk ever played while under the influence?