Hello Everyone!
It is a privilege to be able to write blogs for
HockeyBarn.com and this is my first installment. For this issue, I'd like to share with all
you hockey fans out there what it was like when I first found out that I was
being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame! First off, no one ever dreams or rehearses the enormous
elevation of emotions that had me reliving my life and evaluating each angle of
it. I was eligible for the Hall of Fame
for 10 years, and when June came around every year the media and the hockey
world would track me Cut to June 17, 2008....the anniversary of the NY
Rangers parade through the Canyon of Heroes; the day we spent at Gracie Mansion
and received keys to the world's greatest city 14 years earlier! June 17th is also a magical day for me, as I
saw my now wife Susan for the first time on that day. When I saw Susan for the first time, the
world went into slow motion for me. I
watched her and knew she was "the one". June 17th is also my Grandma Margaret's
birthday. Suffice it to say that each
year June 17th is a very special day for me.
And this June 17th sure lived up to the others. I received a call from Kelly Masse in the Hall of
Fame to call Jim Gregory, Senior Vice
President of Hockey Operations for the NHL.
I called Susan and told her the news, and she replied "that's
fantastic...well call him!" I called the number Kelly gave me, but it
didn't work. She gave me another one to
call and the guy that answered that one told me I had the wrong number. Now I
am thinking what a great elaborate joke someone is playing on me. On my third call I was pretty skeptical when
the receptionist was really not helpful and someone else answered the phone and
said he was with Jim and handed him the phone.
I was thinking "yeah sure Jim will get on the phone, this should be
good." Then Mr. Jim Gregory
congratulated me in the most > At 3PM I picked up my daughter Autumn and could not
wait to share the news with her about how Daddy got the call to be inducted
into the Hockey Hall Of Fame, the greatest honor any hockey player could ever
achieve. When I told Autumn the exciting
news, she smiled and calmly replied, "That's nice daddy. I let the butterflies that grew from
caterpillars go today and fly to Central Park."
Well, it didn't take long to be humbled and brought down out of the
clouds. Things were gently put back into
perspective by my then 5 year old in kindergarten. She later explained to me that they were free
to fly into the world and be happy and I was also able to soar with this
fantastic news and be happy just like them.
The phone didn't stop ringing for weeks and the
celebration started immediately after Susan got home from work. It was a great whirlwind of excitement. It also began a new line of questioning... "How
is your speech coming along and what are you going to say?!" I will have to leave off here and discuss "the
making of the speech." What an
emotional rollercoaster ride that you have only 4 minutes allotted for and you
need to fit your life's work and thanks into that tiny space of time. I will dedicate that story in my next blog. Until then, live each day feeling, laughing and
discovering. Glenn Anderson
Get the inside scoop straight from a 6-time Stanley
Cup winner and newly inducted member of the Hockey Hall of Fame. "Glenn's Inside Scoop" is the personal blog
of Glenn Anderson shown exclusively on HockeyBarn.com. When you're finished reading Glenn's blog,
learn more about Glenn's exciting new fantasy camps at www.GlennsGlobalGames.com
down and ask
me if this would be the year I was going in.
Sometimes the media would be so certain that I would be set up on a live
remote, only to congratulate other very deserving players for being
inducted. I always answered the same
way..."I don't know when I would be inducted and had no input, control or
public relations firm working on my behalf. 
sincere way
and made me feel completely honored and passed the phone to Mr. Bill Hay,
Chairman and CEO of the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Bill told me was happy he wouldn't have to answer to Glen Sather anymore
on why I am not in the HHOF and asked if I could keep it quiet until the press conference
later that afternoon. What they didn't
know was that Wayne Gretzky had called to congratulate me already, and I
thought he must really be a hockey God, because I had no idea what he was
talking about at the time. Kevin Lowe
was on the same ESP train when he called to say he felt like this was the day I
would get the nod. The call had come
around 12:37PM in the afternoon and I
was on cloud "9". Would my
feet ever touch the ground again? Well,
that didn't take long to find out.
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