Burns Snubbed?

The only word I can use to describe the overlooking of Pat Burns by the Hockey Hall of Fame is…Unfortunate.

Pat Burns, what can you say about the guy? Here is a man who has not only been a great coach but a statute of standing strength in his lengthy battle with cancer. The Montreal, Quebec native over 14 seasons coaching in the NHL with Montreal, Toronto, Boston and New Jersey was a catalyst when it came to putting winning teams on the ice, he accumulated a record of 501-350-161-14 in 1019 games, winning one Stanley cup in 2003 with the Devils.

Now, when you look at this year’s Halls inductees you see Dino Ciccarelli, Angela James, and Cammi Granato, so two women and 600+ goal scorer albeit worthy inductees but are they worthy ahead of a guy like Burns? With Dino you can make a case, the guy had over 600 goals, was a great player and fairly dominate in his time, the two women Granato is the all time leading international scorer for women and James was a catalyst for Canada during all of the championships that they won over the years, all deserved to get in but ahead of a guy like Burns? I can see going in the same class as him but not ahead of him, and judging by the reaction of most fans around the world yesterday there are more than a few who agree with me in that regard.

One has to question whether or not Burns’ past life has come in to play when this decision was made, we’ve seen it before in baseball and are we beginning to see it in hockey? Burns before he was a hockey coach was a police officer and his name and personal numbers were found on some Hells Angels documents in one of their club house and was subsequently questioned by the Ontario Provincial Police in 1994 about the documents, at which time although burns continued to associate with them, claimed that he did not know that they were Hells Angels members.

I hope this isn’t the case, because if we’re starting to see this type of behavior from the Hockey Hall of Fame as we did and continue to see from the Baseball Hall of Fame, I for one will be disappointed. –CH-