gold star for USAHOF

2005 Hockey Inductees

The 2005 Hockey Hall of Fame Class for many was the Cam Neely show, but for us the induction of Soviet superstar, Valeri Kharlamov helped to validate the Hall’s claim of being a true Hall of Fame recognizing the International game. Vladislav Tretiak’s induction started it, and this one cemented it.
One of the most popular players ever to put on a Boston Bruins uniform (and doesn’t that say something!) Cam Neely’s career was taken away far too soon. Neely fought countless injuries, which although is typical for hockey players was exasperated by his attacking style of play. He was a natural goal scorer who three times hit the 50 goal mark, most impressively in the…
Murray Costello played 162 NHL games in the 1950’s and was a top executive in the Western Hockey League, but these are not the reasons that he was selected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2005 as a builder. Primarily, it was his near twenty year stint as the President of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association that got him in. In that period, he…
Valeri Kharlamov never played in the National Hockey League, but every NHL fan in the 1970’s knew who he was.   Vladislav Tretiak may have received most of the attention in the Soviet Red Army, but it was the scoring prowess of Kharlamov that ran the engine. In addition to the passing and stickhandling fundamentals that were ingrained in the Russian players, Kharlamov was a flash…