Today the Hockey Hall of Fame announced their inductees for 2020 after their first-ever virtual voting process. The HHOF inducts in the player, builder and officials categories each year, and has set themselves a ceiling of two women players that they rarely hit. They can induct four men as players, and the builder and officials category is capped at a joint two inductees each year.

Jarome Iginla

Never in doubt, one of the greatest Canadians to ever play hockey has stepped directly into the Hall.

IGGY! was the sound of winning in 2010:

Omar talked about that goal here:

Words from a Black Blogger: A dark past with hope of a brighter future

Iginla, especially, was everything to me growing up. He proved that someone like me didn’t have to only be a fighter. He proved that someone like me could be a star and a leader. I still remember the salt from the tears streaming down my face hearing Sidney Crosby scream his name ahead of the game winner for Canada at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Actually, listen to this video, and hear the IGGY! over and over:

Iginla is more than one pass, though. He is a giant of the game, and was a star from junior hockey through to the end of his career over 20 NHL seasons. He never won a cup, but he was still a star.

Kim St-Pierre

One of Canada’s most decorated goaltenders, St-Pierre has three Olympic Gold Medals, five World Championship golds, and four silvers and was also a CWHL champion. She came up through McGill University in the late nineties, and won her first Olympic medal in Salt Lake City in 2002 as the starter in net for the gold-medal game.  She played in the original Canadian league known as the NWHL, and the CWHL — always for Montréal.  Her last season was in 2012-2013 with the Montréal Stars.

She has worked as a coach in Quebec since then.

You can see her failing (only twice because the highlights of the goalie are usually the failures) on the way to celebration in Salt Lake here:

Marian Hossa

The long-time Chicago forward joins Iginla in entering the Hall as soon as he’s eligible. The Slovakian is a three-time Stanley Cup winner and had an NHL career that began in Ottawa and ended in glory in Chicago. He has the distinction of having his contract still on the books (in Arizona) on LTIR on the day he’s announced into the Hall.

Kevin Lowe

Entering the Hall as a player, Lowe is also a former Oilers hockey executive, and he still has a position with the organization. With six Stanley Cups to his name, he wasn’t ever the most famous or most talented of the players on the Oilers dynasty teams, but he exemplified what a defenceman used to be.

Doug Wilson

You might think he’s going in the Hall for making trades for Erik Karlsson and Mike Hoffman both, but before he was running the Sharks as the most shark-like GM in the NHL, he was playing in Chicago (and San Jose) for 16 years. He won the Norris Trophy once, but never the Stanley Cup, and in San Jose, he’s still trying to win it.

Ken Holland

You can’t make the Hall as an active player, but you can as an active executive, as this year proves three-times over. The former Red Wings, and current Oilers GM will be inducted into the HHOF in the builder category. Holland, 64, and a former goalie, has worked in scouting and management of NHL teams since 1985, and contributed to some of the greatest teams ever put on ice in Detroit. He became GM in 1997 and won the Cup in his first year.

The HHOF selection committee chose not to name anyone in the officials category, and did not add another builder as they’re allowed to do. The 2020 HHOF inductees will have 50% fewer women than the rules allow. This is not the year for the saying, “It’s not the NHL Hall of Fame.”