First off - hello. I do lurk here though I have rarely participated. I'm not sure why, as this forum truly is one of the best online homes of hockey history. I can only dream of having such a community commenting at GreatestHockeyLegends.com.
Secondly, thank you for reading my list. I know there will be mostly nothing but disagreements and that is great. By all means dissect away. I am not here to argue or defend any selection.
As seventieslord said, I really do have the highest respect for the work done here. So high that I refused to look at the ATD/HOH rankings and other threads until after I was mostly satisfied with my own list. I figured my list would be justified if it compared reasonably to your work. You guys do an amazing job here and I hope to see you guys do something more with it.
This project started 6 months ago but really has been kicking around my head for 40 years. With a little luck, I'll be fine tuning it for another 40, but that might be a stretch! I certainly hope to add a few names in the future.
Just a bit of background on my process. I've been trying to figure out some magic formula for years now, but I ultimately came to the conclusion I already knew - that was simply impossible. So I focussed on my definition of the word greatest in this setting. I'm fairly happy with it, especially since I accepted that it is okay to be persuaded by personal bias and perspectives.
From there I made a number of lists which I felt compared each player fairly in their own generation, position, country etc etc. Once I had those lists completed, the top 100 actually fell together quite nicely. I forced myself to keep true to my original lists when merging it all into the master list. Player B had to rank by Player A positionally and Player A generationally etc etc. I found the top 100 could be pretty easily broken into groups of 10. That's when I allowed personal preference to determine each group of 10.
My list spilled over to over 150. I actually tried expanding the project to a Top 250, but it just became too much. It was almost dumb to go that high. Personal opinion is fine for 100 or less, but there's no real point to naming the 238th best player ever.
I only hope this list helps improve my reputation in hockey history circles while stirring conversation and perhaps introducing new legends, heroes and stories to fans of the great game of hockey.