Two men who weren’t sure how things were going to go for them in Alberta are now members of the province’s Hockey Hall of Fame.
Former Calgary Flames player Theo Fleury and former Edmonton Oilers player Kevin Lowe are part of the hall’s 2019 induction class.
“I came to Calgary Jan. 1, 1989, as a guy that wasn’t supposed to play one game in the National Hockey League. I had the odds stacked against me,” recalled Fleury Thursday afternoon at Rogers Place. “Six months later, we’re carrying the Stanley Cup around the Montreal Forum.”
“I’d never been further west than London, Ont., until I stepped foot in Edmonton in September of 1979,” said Lowe, who was the Oilers first ever draft pick. “One of the great things that happened was becoming friends with Mark Messier and meeting his mom and dad, Doug and Mary Jean Messier. I would go to dinners at their place and hear stories about Alberta and Edmonton hockey history. For me to think that I’m part of that today is really special.”
Lowe went on to win five Stanley Cups with the Oilers while Fleury played 1,084 NHL games. They’ll be two of the inductees honoured at the Alberta Hockey Hall of Fame awards gala in Canmore on July 21.
The Medicine Hat Tigers teams of 1987 and 1988 will enter the hall in recognition of their back-to-back Memorial Cup championships.
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“It’s so cool to go in with your brothers,” said Scott McCrady, who was a defenceman on those teams. “We knew we had a good team. In a season like that and when you’re young kids like that, you really gotta come together at the right time. We had a goal in mind, and it paid off.”
The other inductees are Shirley Cameron (player, coach, and builder of women’s hockey), Bob Ridley (long-time play-by-play voice and bus driver of the Tigers) and Duncan MacDougall (four decades involved with grassroots officiating in Edmonton).
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