Damien Cox: The Hockey Hall of Fame’s continued exclusion of Alexander Mogilny is nothing less than a crime

Accountability and standards went out the window a long time ago for the Hockey Hall of Fame.

What you are left with, ostensibly, is a living museum, fascinating but flawed — not an organization determined to recognize excellence in a logical, understandable manner, but rather one that invents its own idiosyncratic way of chronicling the history of the sport.

So what to make of the latest Hall of Fame class? Of the male players inducted, as long as superstardom or piling up Stanley Cup triumphs isn’t your guide, it’s an acceptable group. They were splendid players and deserve congratulations.

As long as you’re not looking to be left in awe, the class of 2023 is fine. Remember, being as good as Bernie Federko, George Armstrong or Clark Gillies gets you in as a player. To be inducted as a builder, being as much of a contributor to hockey as Harold Ballard was in his days is sufficient.

The hockey hall, specifically its induction panel, is a secret organization that has gone out of its way to make certain that none of its members has to be accountable for their decisions, even if they are based on nothing more than a gut feeling, a personal grudge or, as was the case in the days before female players were admitted, blatant misogyny.

Still, here we are in 2023, and the hall can nonetheless find new ways to make you shake your head at its decisions.

The continued exclusion of Alexander Mogilny, despite his utter brilliance as a hockey player and status as a trailblazer, is nothing less than a crime against the accurate history of the game. Mogilny was mercurial and sometimes a pain in the butt to deal with, but he also marched to the beat of his own drum and was more talented than at least one-quarter of the forwards currently in the hall.

Like Borje Salming coming to North America in 1973, Mogilny altered both the culture and history of the sport through his cloak-and-dagger escape in 1989 to become the first major Soviet star to defect to the west. Mogilny scored 76 goals as a member of the Buffalo Sabres, 55 as a player with the Vancouver Canucks and another 43 skating for the New Jersey Devils. His 473 career goals only scratch the surface of his unique, imaginative skills as a player.

How Mogilny was not in the Hockey Hall of Fame already before Wednesday was hard to understand. How the induction committee then decided Henrik Lundqvist, Mike Vernon, Tom Barrasso and Pierre Turgeon — Pierre Turgeon! — were more worthy than Mogilny on Wednesday afternoon makes you suspect something odd is going on here.

Maybe it’s a Russian thing related to that country’s vicious military assault on Ukraine, as some have written. But given that the league loves to celebrate Alexander Ovechkin and has more Russians than any North American pro league, that wouldn’t make sense now, would it? If there is any revulsion in the NHL over doing business with Russians, it has been well-disguised.

In a perfect world, the induction committee would supply us with an answer as to why Mogilny can’t seem to make the grade. But protecting secrecy matters more, so we’ll never know what it is about Mogilny that continues to motivate the hall to look askance at his candidacy. There is one Russian, Igor Larionov, on the 18-person induction panel.

The other area in which the hall continues to behave in a most baffling manner is the way in which, after finally and reluctantly agreeing to induct females several years ago, it continues to treat women as second-class citizens. Third-class, really.

The maximum number of female players that can be inducted in a single year is two, while the max for men is four. Going in, then, you know women are not as valued as men by the induction committee. On Wednesday, with all kinds of deserving women still on the outside looking in, the hall inducted the maximum number of men, but only Caroline Ouellette in the women’s category.

Builders? They got the maximum of two inductees in that category. And, of course, both were men. Very talented and successful men, and very well connected men.

But, and this is just to pick one name out of a very large hat, the late Hazel McCallion did as much or more to build and promote women’s hockey as many in the men’s game. There are plenty of other names women’s hockey historians could rattle off if asked to provide a list of women who helped the female game become what it is today.

It just makes no sense. Why not at the very least max the number of women players? Or honour a female builder? It’ll be years before the hall catches up to where it needs to be to accurately reflect the role of so many females in the game. The induction committee is dominated by North American men, the majority of whom, if they broke their oath of secrecy under threat of torture, would tell you the women’s game does not deserve the same respect as the men’s game.

Look, it’s fine that the Hockey Hall of Fame prefers not to be exclusive like Cooperstown, but rather wants to have very moderate standards. What is a hall of fame, really, but a way for the sport to generate revenue and attention through the celebration of its history and retired players? It’s a group opinion of who mattered most in the sport. Put together another group, and you’d get another opinion. In this case, put together an induction committee with a majority of women and non-North Americans and you’d definitely get a different opinion.

But if that’s the choice, to choose inclusivity over exclusivity, the hall should not be snubbing Mogilny and minimizing women. Or it should have to explain itself.