A Letter to the Hockey Hall of Fame
B Y S C O T T TAY L O R
Photos courtesy the Estate of Ed Sweeney
Artwork of Ed Sweeney (opposite) by Manny Martins-Karman
rom Nov. 10-13, the Hockey
Hall of Fame celebrated
a new slate of honored
members. And frankly, it’s
rather thrilling that former
Winnipeg Jets star Teemu
Selanne and former Jets
assistant coach Clare Drake were
inducted last month.
However, I must admit that
the Hall just isn’t as inspir-
ing for me as it once was. The
people who run it, run it to keep
Torontonians and Americans
happy. The people who run it have,
strangely, forgotten hockey’s past.
My old friend Ed Sweeney, God
rest his soul, knew that, too. Ed
never got emotional about the Hall’s
mistakes — and, be sure, the Hall
has made plenty of mistakes — but
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he did like to poke the bear every
year. The day the inductees were
announced, Ed sent out his “let-
ter.” He wrote it for nearly a decade.
It was polite and respectful. And
because my late friend– the man
who helped me research the book,
The Winnipeg Jets, a Celebration
of Professional Hockey in Winnipeg
– can’t do it anymore, I will once
again take up the gauntlet.
I have done it four times
since his death in 2013.
The late Mr. Sweeney’s letter was
written on behalf of four hockey
legends with ties to Manitoba, and
he did it in to alert Bill Hay or Jim
Gregory or Harry Sinden or some-
body on the Hall of Fame selection
committee, to the fact that for the
hockey historians in this part of
Canada, the Toronto-based Hall is
still a sad Eastern/American joke.
For more than a decade, Sweeney
kept a list of four men, coaches,
builders and players who should be
in the Hall, but for reasons he could
just never understand, have been
consistently ignored by the people
who made the Hall’s final selections.
For those who don’t know,
Sweeney was an old baseball player
and bowling champion (he used to
set pins at Billy Mosienko Lanes
in Winnipeg’s North End) who
always had that deep, abiding love
for hockey that only a Canadian
can have. He’s the former cura-
tor of the Manitoba Hockey Hall
of Fame and was, for a long time,
an active member of the Canadian
Association for Hockey Research.