There were plenty of interesting names (including a few outliers, such as Hakan Loob, Mike Vernon and Rogie Vachon) who received would-be votes in PHT’s 2011 Hockey Hall of Fame polls, but four players stood above the rest. Goalie Ed Belfour and forwards Joe Nieuwendyk, Doug Gilmour and Adam Oates received the most votes among PHT staffers, hockey bloggers and media experts.
Naturally, our votes won’t count toward the actual 2011 Hockey Hall of Fame inductees, but it’s still an interesting experiment in public opinion. Here are the voting results. (Four finalists in bold.)
Ed Belfour - 9 votes
Joe Nieuwendyk - 8 votes
Doug Gilmour - 7 votes
Adam Oates - 6 votes
Pat Burns, Phil Housley, Boris Mikhailov, Pavel Bure and Dave Andreychuk - 3 votes
Eric Lindros, Sergei Makarov, Rick Middleton and Alex Mogilny - 2 votes
Hakan Loob, Mike Vernon, Rogie Vachon, Fred Shero, Pat Verbeek - 1 vote
As you can see, the top four achieved something close to consensus while there were some interesting “fringe” candidates at the bottom of the order. If you’re wondering who will actually be inducted this afternoon, stick with PHT for that update.
