Vancouver Canucks Dominate
The weekend of festivities for Vancouver Canucks Hockey Hall of Famers continued Sunday at the Scotiabank Arena with Honoured Member Cammi Granato and new inductees Daniel Sedin, Henrik Sedin, and Roberto Luongo taking the ice for the Legends Classic.
The playing rosters also included former Canucks forward Brendan Morrison and defencemen Kevin Bieksa and Dan Hamhuis.
The game featured Team Mats Sundin versus Team Eric Lindros, with those two Hall of Famers serving as team captains.
Granato, a current Canucks assistant general manager who earned induction back in 2010, played with the Sedins and Morrison on Team Sundin. As more than a few skaters did, she laughed a bit when asked postgame about how the legs felt.
“Yeah, they were fine,” Granato said, “It’s a little funny when you get back on the ice and you haven’t been on for so long, you go to do a crossover and it doesn’t feel the same. Nothing feels the same as when you did play, but I just tried to enjoy it because there’s so many great players around, so many guys that you watched play in the NHL for so long, and now you’re playing with them. It’s a lot of fun to go out there.”
It was also a lot of fun for the fans who filled the lower bowl at the Scotiabank Arena. Not only did they see Daniel Sedin score two goals, they saw former Canucks goalie Luongo score two goals as well in Team Lindros’s 10-6 win. That’s right, the netminder “played out” as a D-man and then at forward.
“It was fun,” Luongo declared, “the first time I’ve ever had a chance to play out in a situation like this, so a lot of fun, but my hands weren’t necessarily cooperating.”
Daniel Sedin earned third star honours.
“It felt OK, my balance was off and I haven’t played with equipment for awhile so it felt a little bit off,” Daniel said.
Before the game the new Hockey Hall of Famers received their official blazers at centre ice, two days after receiving their rings and one day after signing the Hall of Fame register. It all leads up to Monday evening’s induction ceremony that also features 18-year NHL forward Daniel Alfredsson and the family of the late Herb Carnegie, a trailblazer in the area of hockey diversity and in giving underprivileged children the opportunity to play.
Another 2022 inductee, Finnish women’s player Riikka Sallinen opted not to make the trip over for the festivities due to her job responsibilities as a physical therapist for disabled patients back home. She played for the Finnish women’s national team for 16 seasons and earned multiple medals at both the Winter Olympics and at World Championships.
((Trivia answer from the 11-20 Hockey Hall of Fame story. The five Red Wings to win all four Stanley Cups between 1997 and 2008 — Nick Lidstrom, Tomas Holmstrom, Kirk Maltby, Darren McCarty, and Kris Draper))
