If you have heard our weekly Podcast, the Buck Stops Here: Hall of Fame Show, you know that we have discussed (surprisingly) Women’s Tennis a lot, mostly the issues that Naomi Osaka has been going through.  With Osaka’ issues, and an aging Serena Williams, 18-year-old Emma Raducanu came out of nowhere to win the U.S. Open, and a star was born.

The British sensation not only won her first Grand Slam, but became a media darling and instant fan-favorite.  The International Tennis Hall of Fame has taken notice, and Radacanu’s U.S. Open game-worn outfit will now be displayed at their institution.

Here’s hoping that there will be a lot more success for Raducanu.

Yes, we know that this is taking a while!

As many of you know, we here at Notinhalloffame.com are slowly generating the 50 of each major North American sports team.  That being said, we have existing Top 50 lists out and we always consistently look to update them when we can and based on necessity.  As such, we are very happy to present our pre-2021-22 revision of our top 50 Colorado Avalanche.

As for all of our top 50 players in hockey we look at the following: 

1.  Advanced Statistics.

2.  Traditional statistics and how they finished in the NHL. 

3.  Playoff accomplishments.

4.  Their overall impact on the team and other intangibles not reflected in a stat sheet.

Please note, that this is our first revision in in the last two years, and it has generated one new entry, and four elevations.

As always, we present our top five immediately, although there are no changes from our last list:

1. Joe Sakic

2. Peter Forsberg

3. Michel Goulet

4. Peter Stastny

5. Patrick Roy

You can find the entire list here.

Center, Nathan MacKinnon, who earned his second Second Team All-Star in 2020, climbed to #8 from #11.

2012 Calder Trophy winning forward, Gabriel Landeskog, moved up four spots to #14.

Defenseman, Erik Johnson, moved up one spot to #25.

Mikko Rantanen, climbs from #41 to #27.  The Right Wing led the NHL in Plus/Minus last year and was also a Second Team All-Star.

The lone new entry is Cale Makar, who is at #50 with only two NHL seasons logged.  He was the runner-up for the Norris last year.

We welcome your input and comments and as always, we thank you for your support.

Born during the depression, Wynn grew up in a sharecropping family. While he was a teenager, Wynn and his family moved to California. Although he wanted to grow up to become a baseball player, he had an issue with his hand that prevented it so instead, he formed a band that played in local clubs. Soon he was meeting up with various players and making connections throughout the circuit. From the point where he signed his first label contract in 1954 until the end of his career, he struggled with radio success. He never achieved a huge number of hits or a large level of fame. But even without chart triumphs, Wynn still became an important piece in the country music tapestry. First, he hired a young Merle Haggard as his bass player, and ended up writing Merle’s first hit song (Merle would wind up becoming one of the biggest legends country music ever knew). Second, Wynn was one of the originators of the Bakersfield sound. Bakersfield was a subgenre of country that was born out of Bakersfield, California, and used a backbeat and more electric instruments. Wynn’s music would go on to influence Merle (inducted 1994) and Buck Owens (inducted 1996), then later artists like Marty Stuart (inducted 2020) and Dwight Yoakam. Currently, the chances of Wynn getting into the Hall Of Fame are limited with the list of artists in front of him. But if he were to get in, it would be very deserving.

By the time he had his first hit record in the mid 1960’s, Donald Lytle had run away from home at 15, rode the trains, performed in plenty of clubs, joined the Navy, played instruments on other artist’s recordings, recorded solo music on various labels and changed his name to Johnny Paycheck. From that point, he had a few hits but nothing huge. But Paycheck was never afraid of changing his musical direction. He started with a honky-tonk sound, then went through a stage of pop arrangements and strings. After some issues with the law in the mid 70’s, he altered to the now-popular “outlaw” image going through the genre. This would bring about a string of successes for him, but more problems with the law in the early 1980’s would put an end to that. Throughout the 80’s, his legal issues would not stop: drugs, alcohol, tax problems, arrested for rape of a minor, and murder. He spent 22 months in prison before being pardoned by the Ohio governor. He never got a radio career back after that, but he kept recording and performing until 2000, and passed away in 2003. He has got the hits and resume to be a Hall Of Fame member, but I’m sure those legal problems are big deterrents to voters. Will he make it in?