Sports Halls of Fame: Hockey

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

A feeling almost of reverence pervades the halls of fame of basketball, baseball and football. Visitors move from exhibit to exhibit in respectful hush surrounded by the legends of their sport. In contrast in Toronto, Ontario at the Hockey Hall of Fame, the most hands-on of all the sports halls of fame, noise and excitement bounce off the walls like hockey pucks rattling off the rink boards. It opened in June 1993 not so much as a museum to the past as a funky, wildly-enthusiastic tribute to Canada’s first love, its national obsession—hockey.

Obsession really describes how Canada feels about this sport. It affects—or infects—all ages although the guides at this glitzy plate glass and stainless steel place all seem incredibly young.

One is trying to explain ice hockey to older visitors from California.

“We grow up,” he says, “playing hockey all through our childhood. It’s part of our national heritage. We Canadians are defined by our geography. Many of us live in small towns of 500-1000 people separated by hundreds of miles in the middle of nowhere. We have long cold winters with nothing to do except play hockey. It’s a community sport. The whole town joins in.”

The whole town of Toronto seems to have joined in to celebrate its tourist attraction: the traffic has been non-stop ever since the hall opened. Seven times larger than the one it replaces, the facility took four years to build at a cost of C$25 million. It returns more than C$21 million a year to the Toronto economy.

Visitors enter through Brookfield Place (formerly BCE Place), a vast office mall, all vaulted glass cathedral ceilings and chrome. Its grandeur makes the entrance to the Hockey Hall of Fame somewhat anti-climactic—more like that of an amusement arcade. The impression persists, maintained by the almost frantic activity inside where not only are the artifacts and legends of the game displayed but also machines and computers that allow visitors to interact with the institution. Guests can challenge their hockey knowledge with computerized trivia games; test their hockey skills on a plastic high tech ice rink; call the great plays of the past with their own recorded commentaries; and watch, in a theater with dramatic sound, a close-up video  of the game from the players’ perspective.

When children are present in force the place rocks with noise. But there are havens of rest where visitors can reflect on this game, one played in more countries worldwide than any other sport save soccer. One such haven is a duplicate of the most famous dressing room in the game, that of the Montreal Canadiens, the team that has won the Stanley Cup 23 times in its first century. One of the guides in the dressing room zone, waves his hands over some of the famous jerseys whose numbers are now retired. Those of Maurice “The Rocket” Richard—jersey # 9; Jean Beliveau—#4; and Guy Lafleur—#10 especially attract youngsters.

“No wonder the game attracts fans,” he says. “It’s the fastest team game in the world on two legs.We try to capture that energy here, the enthusiasm, the excitement. The noise: the clatter of the puck bouncing off the glass, the schussing of the skates, the roar of the crowd.”

He stoops to answer a small boy’s question then continues, “But we want to show the skills in this sport too: stick handling, passing. shooting, goal tending, even checking all fit together to provide an exacting game, one that goes so fast from defense to offense, more even so than basketball.”

Upstairs, monitoring the interest in the Stanley Cup shown by visitors stands another guide. Challenged by a tourist that hockey is just “Boxing on Ice,” he smiles and responds, “Well emotions can run high but this game is important in our culture. It’s sometimes hard to know where hockey starts and Canada ends. It’s such a part of the fabric of the country. From radio days on it has united our nation.”

You can feel this. In the Bell Great Hall where the names are enshrined on the Great Wall; in the history zone, a dramatic double-tiered rotunda display saluting the past; and in the marquee zone which profiles each National Hockey League club.

In the latter area stands an original statue of the famous goal tender, Ken Dryden. The statue by Robin Bell was cast at the Fonderia Mariani in Pietrasanta, Italy reminding us of the international appeal of hockey even though 80 percent of the NHL players are Canadian.

A plaque carries a statement by the revered goalie it immortalizes. Dryden’s clumsy but heartfelt comments might well extend beyond the sport to the game of life itself.

The plaque reads:

“To give the team what it needs, when it needs it: for that is the goalie’s challenge. Not when you are uninjured, untired, unsick, unworried enough to give it, not when you feel like giving it. To feel needed in turn. And when that happens, there is nothing quite like it.”