From ESPN...
The four-person United States Hockey Hall of Fame's class of 2008 -- announced on Tuesday morning -- is appropriately Olympian, given the events of the day.
It also is groundbreaking.
Brian Leetch, Mike Richter, Brett Hull and Cammi Granato officially will be inducted at a dinner and ceremony on Oct. 10, held in conjunction with the next night's University of Denver-Notre Dame Hall of Fame Game at DU's Magness Arena. The U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Museum is in Eveleth, Minn.
The three men were obvious choices for the selection committee, a group assembled by USA Hockey in the wake of its takeover of the voting process last year (Editor's note: Frei serves on the panel).
The final slot -- a maximum of four inductees are allowed each year -- was no less of a no-brainer. Granato's trailblazing efforts on the women's hockey front in the U.S., coupled with the explosion of the women's and girls' games, were unique, noteworthy and crucial -- and not only because she was captain of the 1998 U.S. Olympic team that won the first women's gold medal.
Her older brother, Tony, played with Richter at the University of Wisconsin and also with both Richter and Leetch on the 1988 U.S. Olympic team at Calgary and with the Rangers.
So the Colorado Avalanche's head coach, while not a part of this class, is the common thread. Tony Granato never has been sheepish about the fact that in some corners, his sister is more famous than he is.
"It's special for me because I remember her playing hockey with all the boys," Tony Granato said. "I remember her changing her name to Carl to play in a tournament because girls weren't allowed to play. I saw her putting her ponytail under her helmet so nobody would know she was a girl. I saw all that. There's someone who plays hockey for the love of the game.
"And it's not just Cammi, but all the girls who played in the first Olympics and world championships. They didn't play for any other reason except they loved the game. What they did for the women's game and women's sports, you can't take your hats off enough.
"They didn't listen to, 'No, you can't do this.' Cammi's answer always was, 'Why not?' When she was a little girl, she said, 'I'm going to play for the Blackhawks.' 'What do you mean, you're going to play for the Blackhawks?' 'Well, why not?'
"She heard, 'You can't play in the tournament.' She said, 'Well, why not, I'm a good player.' So all along, that's the way it was. She taught me a lot about the fire inside, the drive to motivate yourself."
The Belleville, Ontario-born Hull first played for the U.S. in major international competition in 1986 at the World Championships, shortly after he left the University of Minnesota-Duluth and made a playoff cameo with the Flames to open his NHL career. After that, he was on the American team twice in the World Cup and twice at the Olympics.
Hull, the current Dallas Stars co-general manager, won the Hart Trophy in 1991, and his 741 NHL career goals are behind only Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe on the all-time list -- and 131 ahead of his father's NHL total, although Bobby tossed in an additional 303 in the World Hockey Association.
Richter, born and raised in Pennsylvania, had 301 wins in his Rangers career, which ended prematurely because of concussion problems. He and Leetch were cornerstones of the 1994 Rangers team that finally broke through to end a 54-year Stanley Cup drought.
Leetch was one of the prototypes of the hybrid defenseman, winning the Norris Trophy twice and finishing with 247 goals and 781 assists in an 18-season career that ended with the Bruins.
Current rules don't allow for choices in something along the lines of the Hockey Hall of Fame's builder category. That will make it difficult, if not impossible, for nonplayers to make the cut for induction. In addition, many deserving players are backlogged, such as goaltender Tom Barrasso and others who will become eligible in the next few years.
That likely will shut out many deserving choices from beyond the ranks of the relatively contemporary former players. One example: longtime USA hockey administrator Art Berglund, who, along with Cammi Granato, recently was inducted in the International Ice Hockey Federation's Hall of Fame.
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