Hockey Hall of Fame media honorees announced

While we’ll eagerly anticipate the announcement of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Class of 2010 (with some of the possibilities talked about here), part of that group was made known when they announced who their media inductees would be for this year.

Bill Hay, Chairman of the Hockey Hall of Fame, announced today that Marc De Foy, who has covered hockey in Montreal for more than 30 years, will receive the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award for hockey journalism. Hay also announced that Ron Weber, the original play-by-play voice of the Washington Capitals, will receive the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for outstanding contributions as a hockey broadcaster.

In the Capitals’ efforts to get their fans reinvigorated with hockey, it almost makes too much sense to honor Ron Weber, a guy who was there with the Capitals from the get-go and through some pretty awful years in the 1970s up through until the team started to show some promise in the 80s and 90s. Being honored with the Foster Hewitt Award is the absolute pinnacle to an outstanding career. It’s just a shame that Weber missed out on the “Rock the Red” years in Washington to see his legend grow there even more, but he’s certainly kept up following the team as On Frozen Blog shared.

Saturday night I asked Weber: Back in the day, could you have ever imagined demand here for hockey such that the team would sell out 50 straight games at home?

“You’ll be surprised when I say yes,” Weber told me.

“I just thought that if the product was good enough . . . I guess if it surprises me at all it’s because we’re in the teeth of a recession. So that may suggest yes, it’s a little surprising.

For Marc De Foy, being given the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award is about the only thing that can top being a reporter in a hockey-crazed city like Montreal. I know that if I were reporting on a team like the Canadiens in a city like Montreal I’d wake up every morning and pinch myself for having that job. That’s not so much a pro-Montreal statement as it is a pro-hockey one although I’m sure you guys will happily let me know otherwise.