TORONTO — Hayley Wickenheiser hasn’t had loads of time to mirror.
The Canadian girls’s hockey star — a quadruple Olympic gold medallist and seven-time world champion — retired in January 2017 and shortly transitioned to medical faculty.
As if there wasn’t sufficient on right here plate already, she then took on the position as assistant director of participant growth for the Toronto Maple Leafs in August 2018.
Wickenheiser lastly obtained an opportunity to look again at her standout enjoying profession, and its impression, on Monday evening.
2019 Corridor of Fame Class
The 41-year-old was amongst six inductees enshrined within the Hockey Corridor of Fame, becoming a member of three-time Stanley Cup winner Man Carbonneau, offensive blue-line dynamo Sergei Zubov and Czech nice Vaclav Nedomansky within the gamers class.
Hayley Wickenheiser waves to the group as she comes on the ice for her retirement celebration at Rogers Place. (Perry Nelson-USA TODAY Sports activities)
Pittsburgh Penguins basic supervisor Jim Rutherford and legendary Boston School head coach Jerry York went into the corridor as builders.
Hayley Wickenheiser
“It was not a standard factor as slightly lady to need to play hockey within the small city the place I got here from,” Wickeheiser, a local of Shaunavon, Sask., mentioned throughout her speech. “However my mother and pop believed lady may do something boy may do.
“My dad coached … and my mother fought. She fought not just for the fitting for me to play the sport, however for a whole bunch of different women.”
After suiting up on boys groups rising up in Calgary — there weren’t any for women, and he or she’d tuck her hair beneath her helmet to keep away from standing out — she went on to a stellar 23-year profession with Canada, blazing a path at a time when the game desperately was on the lookout for traction.
Wickenheiser, who has medical faculty exams Wednesday, scored 168 objectives and 379 factors in 276 video games to assist safe 4 straight Olympic golds (2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014) in addition to these seven world titles.
Named the MVP of each the 2002 and 2006 Olympic tournaments, Wickenheiser is the seventh lady to be inducted into the corridor. The previous centre was additionally enshrined within the Worldwide Ice Hockey Federation’s Corridor of Fame within the spring.
Hayley Wickenheiser (VancityAllie/Flickr)
“All of us knew this was going to occur,” Jayna Hefford, a 2018 corridor inductee and Wickenheiser’s Canadian teammate, mentioned earlier than the induction ceremony. “Her work ethic and her depth had been what stood out.
“Everybody has completely different management qualities — these had been Hayley’s.”
Man Carbonneau
Carbonneau, 59, received the Stanley Cup in 1986 and 1993 with the Montreal Canadiens, and once more in 1999 with the Dallas Stars.
The native of Sept Iles, Que., was an attacking power in junior, however transitioned to the opposite facet of the puck within the NHL, turning into one of many sport’s premiere shutdown centres on the way in which to successful the Selke Trophy because the league’s high defensive ahead in 1988, 1989 and 1992.
Man Carbonneau (THW Archives)
Carbonneau, who retired in 2000 and waited 16 years earlier than getting inducted within the corridor, completed with 260 objectives and 663 factors in 1,318 regular-season video games. He added 93 factors (38 objectives, 55 assists) in 260 playoff contests.
“As a child, I used to be dreaming about enjoying within the NHL, dreaming of successful the Stanley Cup, dreaming of scoring a aim within the playoffs,” Carbonneau mentioned. “However being inducted within the Corridor of Fame? By no means in my wildest goals.”
Sergei Zubov
A smooth-skating defenceman with terrific imaginative and prescient, Zubov performed 12 of his 16 NHL seasons with Dallas, registering 152 objectives and 771 factors in 1,068 regular-season video games. The 49-year-old Moscow product added 24 objectives and 117 factors in 164 playoff contests, serving to the New York Rangers win the Stanley Cup in 1994, and Dallas — together with Carbonneau — do the identical in 1999.
Zubov, who additionally received Olympic gold in 1992 with the Unified Crew after the collapse of the Soviet Union, mentioned he didn’t need to go to Dallas when he was dealt to Texas in 1996.
1993-1994: Sergei Zubov of the New York Rangers. Obligatory Credit score: Robert Laberge /Allsport
“Get me traded,” he recounted telling his agent. “However (Stars GM) Bob Gainey did his homework and despatched probably the most lovely bouquet of flowers to my spouse.
“She mentioned, ‘Perhaps we should always give it a strive.’”
Jim Rutherford
A goalie with 4 NHL groups from 1970 to 1983, Rutherford was named GM of the Hartford Whalers in 1994. He caught with the franchise when it moved to Carolina to grow to be the Hurricanes, and constructed the roster that received the group’s solely Cup in 2006.
The 70-year-old from Beeton, Ont., took on the identical position with the Penguins in 2014 and helped information Pittsburgh to back-to-back titles in 2016 and 2017, making him the one GM to win Cups with two completely different groups for the reason that NHL expanded in 1967.
Common supervisor Jim Rutherford of the Pittsburgh Penguins, 2019 NHL Draft (Photograph by Dave Sandford/NHLI through Getty Photographs)
“Don’t let anybody inform you (that) you may’t do one thing, as a result of that was the story of my profession,” Rutherford mentioned. “And the extra they instructed me I couldn’t do issues, the extra it turned out that I did.”
Vaclav Nedomansky
Nedomansky, 75, starred for 12 years in his native Czechoslovakia earlier than turning into the primary athlete from an Jap European communist nation to defect to North America to pursue knowledgeable hockey profession in 1974.
He performed components of three seasons within the World Hockey Affiliation earlier than leaping to the NHL with the Detroit Purple Wings as a 33-year-old rookie. Nedomansky registered 122 objectives and 278 factors in 421 video games with Detroit, the St. Louis Blues and the Rangers.
Vaclav Nedomansky (THW Archives)
“It was tough, difficult, irritating,” Nedomansky mentioned of his determination to defect. “However it occurred, and I’m so pleased that I’m right here.”
Jerry York
The 74-year-old York, who’s in his 48th season behind the bench, owns 5 NCAA titles, together with 4 with the Eagles, and has probably the most wins in U.S. school historical past.
“I simply love teaching,” mentioned the native of Watertown, Mass. “I like the folks we coach. We’re not teaching pucks or towards this individual.
“We’re teaching folks.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Nov. 18, 2019.
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Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press
