This is one of the days that we look forward to every year at Notinhalloffame.com as the Hockey Hall of Fame has announced the Class of 2018. This year’s class includes two former NHL players (Martin Brodeur and Martin St. Louis), a former women’s player (Jayna Hefford), a former Soviet player (Alexander Yakushev) and two builders (Willie O’Ree and Gary Bettman).

Let’s take a deeper look at this year’s class.

The current NHL Commissioner, Gary Bettman was chosen. This will not be a very popular choice especially in Canada, where it is perceived that he has an anti-Canadian bias. Since he took over the league in 1993, there have been three work stoppages. Those who favor his induction will point to the fact that revenue has increased ten fold since he took over. This is not without precedent as the Pro Football Hall of Fame inducted a seated Commissioner in Pete Rozelle in 1985.

Martin Brodeur enters on his first year of eligibility and this selection was as close to being a lock as you could get. With 691 Wins in the NHL, he is the all-time leader in that statistic with his closest competition being 140 away. Brodeur has a claim as the most successful Goalie ever, as in addition to his Wins total he would backstop the New Jersey Devils to three Stanley Cups, was a four time Vezina Trophy winner and a five time William M. Jenning Award winner. Internationally, he had two Olympic Gold Medals with Team Canada. We had him ranked #1 on our most recent list.

Jayna Hefford represented Canada in International competition. She enters in her second year of eligibility. A four time Olympic Gold Medalsis and seven time World Champion, Hefford scored 91 Points Internationally, which is second overall in the history of Canadian Women’s Hockey.

As speculated by many, Willie O’Ree was chosen. O’Ree made history in 1958 when he played for the Boston Bruins in 1958 thus becoming the first black player in the history of the league. While his career only comprised of 45 Games it was a landmark moment for hockey and he was certainly a trailblazer for many of the black players today.   O’Ree’s story has become more well known in recent years and he has been very instrumental in programs that encourage diversity into the sport.

Martin St. Louis went from undrafted to the Hockey Hall of Fame. In 2004, St. Louis took the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Stanley Cup title while winning the Hart Trophy in the process. The undersized player (5’ 8”) would win the Lady Byng Trophy three times and was also the Art Ross Trophy winner in 2013. St. Louis was ranked #3 by us and like Brodeur he entered on his first year of eligibility.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the induction of former Soviet player, Alexander Yakushev. Yakushev was the Soviet League scoring champion in 1969 and was a two time Gold Medalist for the U.S.S.R. in both 1972 and 1974. He scored 11 Points in the famous 1972 Summit Series. To the best of our knowledge, there had been no talk of Yakushev entering the Hockey Hall of Fame.

In terms of our rankings, please note that we only rank former NHL players and have not yet created a list for builders or female players.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate the Class of 2018. We will begin work on our 2019 Notinhalloffame.com Hockey list shortly.

As always, we here at Notinhalloffame.com continue to update our existing lists.

As we slowly put together our Top 50 all-time players for every major team we constantly continue to update our existing ones. For the second time, we are updating the first franchise 50 we ever posted, the Washington Nationals.

Since the last time we revised our Washington Nationals two things have changed.

The first is that since our last revision in two and a half years ago, we have relaxed the dependence on advanced statistic and put a higher reward on individual seasons. We think this allows for a more equitable balance on traditional and advanced metrics.

The second and of course obvious change is that two full seasons have passed. This list is now up until the end of the 2017 Season.

The entire list can be found here and we certainly encourage you to take a look at it and let us know your thoughts and opinions.

Prior to that we wanted to make you aware of a few major changes on the list since the last revision.

Max Scherzer debuts at #9. While his tenure with Washington has certainly been brief, three All Stars and two Cy Youngs already make him one of the most successful hurlers in Nationals history.

2014 Silver Slugger Anthony Rendon makes his first appearance at #22.

Other debuts on current Nationals are Daniel Murphy (#31) and Tanner Roarke (#35).

Other jumps in active Washington Nationals include Bryce Harper from #9 to #8, Steven Strasburg goes from #29 to #11 and Gio Gonzalez moves from #28 to #16.

Other debuts based on our revisions are Moises Alou (#38), Dan Schatzeder (#45) and Wilson Ramos (#47).

As you may have deduced, the entire list has been shuffled.

We will be unveiling the Top 50 All-Time Dallas Stars next.

It is another sad day in the world of Professional Wrestling as Leon White “Vader” passed away due to congestive heart failure at the age of 63.

White got into professional wrestling after a brief career in the National Football League where he most notably appeared for the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl. A patella injury forced him out of the game but like so many football players at the time he moved to the world of professional wrestling.

Trained by Brad Rheingans, White would be given the name of “Baby Bull” Leon White, which would later morph into “Bull Power”. He was not a top of the card guy but his size made him an instant attraction and an asset coveted by other promotions. The first to take advantage of that was New Japan Pro Wrestling and they did not waste anytime making him an instant star.

Directly following a successful win over Riki Choshu, the now named Big Van Vader challenged and soundly thrashed a tired Antonio Inoki, which led to a riot at the Sumo Hall. The promotion was subsequently banned from the facility for nearly two years but Vader instantly became a major star in Japan.

This would usher in the best period of Vader’s career. He would win an eight-man tournament where he would win the vacant IWGP Heavyweight Title and in the process would become the first gaijin to win the belt. During his second reign with the championship (beating Choshu for the belt) he would make wrestling history by becoming a World Champion on three different continents at the same time. He beat El Canek in Mexico to win the UWA Title and Otto Wanz to capture the Catch Wrestling belt.

With continued success in Japan and Europe Vader would be also used by World Championship Wrestling albeit sparingly for the first two years. He would defeat Sting for the WCW Heavyweight Title in 1992 and his series of matches with him were among the best in the company. The big man would win the championship three times and would also have notable feuds with Ric Flair and Cactus Jack. He would be fired from the company following a backstage confrontation with Paul Orndorff, but by that time the WWF was calling.

His first match for the WWF was a performance at the Royal Rumble where he was introduced with Jim Cornette as his manager. Vader was positioned as a monster heel and top contender and after he went through former champion Yokozuna it was expected that he would have a long run against WWF World Heavyweight Champion, Shawn Michaels. The two would fight at Summer Slam 1996 but the two did not mesh and Michael’s political stroke would push him slowly down the card. He would have later title matches against the Undertaker but his last year in the company (1998) would see him losing match after match and essentially being regulated to a “jobber to the stars”.

While Vader was not the same physical specimen he was earlier in the decade he was still a name and he was rejuvenated. He won the All-Japan Triple Crown twice, the Tag Title with “Dr. Death” Steve Williams and would also later win the Pro Wrestling NOAH Tag Titles with Scorpio.

Throughout the 2000’s and early 2010’s Vader would compete independently.

Vader announced through Social Media that due to his heart issues his doctor had given him only two weeks to live though despite his announced illness, Vader continued to work independents with his most notable performance being a win over Will Ospreay that took place over a Twitter war.

In recent months, Mick Foley had mentioned on his Facebook page that he would like to see Vader enter the WWE Hall of Fame while he was still alive. Obviously any induction now would be posthumous. We had him ranked at #24 on our Notinhalloffame list.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to extend our condolences to the friends and family of Leon White at this time.

Terrell Owens has really made himself the centerpiece of this year’s Pro Football Hall of Fame ceremony hasn’t he? This is a pretty impressive accomplishment considering that he won’t even be there.

Today, TMZ showed Owens speaking about the honor of being a Hall of Famer to the Boys and Girls Club in Los Angeles. This has certainly raised some eyebrows as people have wondered why he would say it such a great honor when he is skipping the ceremony, though it again should be reiterated that he never said anything about it not be…just that he will celebrate in his own way.

Other Hall of Famers have sounded off on Owens’ decision. Former Defensive Back Rod Woodson had this to say to NFL Network:

“I really don’t care if he comes or not. But what bothers me more than anything is that in T.O.’s life, he’s had different things that happened to him in his life, but there’s people who helped him come along through his childhood, high school, college, to get to the point where he’s at to be one of the better players to ever play in the National Football League … you can be there to acknowledge them. And they lose out, because he’s thinking, ‘It’s all about T.O.’”

It is hard to dispute this logic. Would TMZ mention this if he were going to the ceremony in Canton? Of course not!

This is the first time that a player who was alive and in good health has skipped out on the Hall of Fame induction.

We know this much, this story has some legs left.