USA Hockey Hall of Fame Welcomes New Players

Last year, Cammi Granato was welcomed into the USA Hockey Hall of Fame and this year the 1998 entire Olympic team was voted into the Hall. Their feat of winning the gold medal by beating Canada and raising the program to another level. Could this have been the start to gaining more interest in womens sports?

"We decided we were going to come together as one and let go of our individuality," Granato said. "It's hard to do that on a team where everyone had been a star on their team before they came to the U.S. program. It's hard to take a backseat sometimes."

But for the male players who were inducted as singles Tony Amonte, Tom Barrasso, John LeClair were honored. It's starting to make me feel old when I remember the entire careers of each player. The end of LeClair's career wasn't of a Hall of Fame quality, but the entire longevity of it as well as the early commitment to the national team program. Tom Barrasso has been a controversial figure to the local media and constantly debate weather Barrasso had a Hall of Fame worthy career. But that assumes the Toronto Hall. Barrasso paved the way for other current American born goalies. In a time when all elite goalies were still considered to come from Quebec, Barrasso proved his critics wrong by finally winning 2 Stanley Cups in the beginning of the 90s. Amonte was a bit of a journeyman in his career wearing 3 different sweaters in the last 5 years of his career. He reached the 11th ranked US born player in career points.

Frank J. Zamboni, in my opinion, should have been honored long ago for his invention in 1949 that now bears his name. Just as shocking, Frank is not even listed in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. Frank died in 1988, but perhaps somewhere in the afterlife there is a hockey rink that is maintained by Frank's invention too.

[Via: USA Today]