Your faithful Seattle Kraken correspondent traveled to Canada for the Hall of Fame inductions during a week of hockey-related activities. This is the second of two journals. Part 1 is here.
Sunday, Nov. 10: He Is Legend. So Is She. And Him. And Them.

Glenn Dreyfuss Photo
Two teams of past hockey stars always suit up for a fun exhibition the afternoon before the annual Hockey Hall of Fame inductions. Captains for the 2024 Legends Classic at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto were a pair of Honored Members themselves, Eric Lindros and Jayna Hefford.

Glenn Dreyfuss Photo
After the 2024 inductees were presented their HHOF blazers – as chairman Lanny McDonald is doing with Jeremy Roenick in the photo at right – Roenick, Pavel Datsyuk, Shea Weber, and Natalie Darwitz changed again to participate in the game. Other players included Hall of Famers Pierre Turgeon, Mike Gartner, and Angela Ruggiero.
Plus, five-time Cup champion Terry Harper took a regular shift – at age 84. Lindros accidentally (we’re pretty sure) at one point checked Harper to the ice. Terry got up, no worse for wear.

Roenick, always the showman, got the crowd shimmying and swaying by leading a solo dance routine to music during a timeout. J.R. was replicating an on-ice dance he had performed during his playing days.
“A pane of Plexiglas broke,” NHL.com’s Nick Cotsonika wrote about a 2005 preseason game. “While the crew worked on it, Roenick started shaking his body to the Bee Gees’ ‘You Should Be Dancing.’ ‘The music was playing, so I decided to dance for everybody,’ Roenick said. ‘Everybody got up and danced with me, and we killed about 10 minutes of downtime. It was fantastic.'”
Monday, Nov. 11: Hall Of (Kraken) Fame

The induction plaque-presenting and speech-making on Monday night actually took place adjacent to the Hall of Fame. Those lucky enough to have tickets – but not A-list tickets – continued to view exhibits, chat, and chow down inside the Hall while watching the ceremony on TV monitors.

I took the opportunity to scout out how the Seattle Kraken are represented inside the sport’s greatest shrine.
A series of displays recognize each of the 32 NHL teams, sorted by division. The Kraken appear twice in the Pacific Division display. One is an image of Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer (photo at left). You can find Grubi, like everyone else in the NHL, below Connor McDavid of the Oilers.

The other is game-worn gloves. The explanation reads, “This pair of gloves was worn by Seattle Kraken defenseman Jamie Oleksiak during the team’s inaugural regular season game on October 12, 2021.”
The game matched the latest two expansion teams, with the Kraken falling behind 3-0 to the Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena. Seattle stormed back with the next three scores before eventually succumbing, 4-3.

Is Matty Beniers the face of the Kraken franchise?
The Hall appears to answer in the affirmative, based on the photo chosen to highlight another Kraken display elsewhere in the complex.

Below Matty is a road sweater from Seattle’s expansion season of 2021-22.
You’d need a whole bunch of guesses to figure out who wore it. One oddity is that it was only worn before the game.
Here’s the accompanying explanation: “Seattle Kraken jersey worn by Alex Barre-Boulet during the warm-up prior to the club’s inaugural NHL game on October 12, 2021 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.”
If the name Barre-Boulet doesn’t ring a bell… that’s not surprising. We wrote about little-remembered yet first Seattle Kraken to be immortalized by the Hall here.
GM Francis Answers Hall Call For 2nd Time
Kraken general manager Ron Francis this week was named chairman of the Hall selection committee. (KHN TV analyst Eddie Olczyk has also been named to the selection committee, as DJLR’s Zaiem Beg reported here.)

This isn’t the GM’s first connection to the Hockey Hall. He was inducted in the Player’s Category in 2007. That’s his plaque in the Great Hall in the photo at left.
Here’s how it reads, in part: “Known as one of the classiest players in the game, Ron Francis was the epitome of consistency throughout his 23-year NHL career with Hartford, Pittsburgh, Carolina and Toronto.”
One More Story
A heartwarming story from the Kraken’s inaugural season involved future medical student Nadia Popovici, sitting behind the Vancouver Canucks bench at Climate Pledge Arena. She managed to get a message to Canucks assistant equipment manager “Red” Hamilton, about a possible cancerous growth on his neck. Hamilton later said the discovery and removal of the mole probably saved his life.

So Kraken fans know an unlikely confluence of events can result in a life being saved. I discovered another first-hand example with a Seattle connection, in of all places the Ottawa Senators Alumni box at the Nov. 7 Sens-Islanders game.
While living in the Emerald City, Jeff Morris wrote hockey columns for ESPN.com. Back in Ottawa, Jeff already wasn’t feeling well when another driver rammed into his car. Now Jeff really wasn’t feeling well. A trip to the doctor explained why – brain cancer. If Morris hadn’t suffered the auto accident, he wouldn’t have learned about the tumor, and he wouldn’t be alive today 5+ years later to share this incredible story.
Jeff wanted to share something else. “We think of heroes as pro athletes or entertainers,” Morris told me. “My heroes are all the people who I don’t know, who I’ll never meet, who decided to donate blood that was used during my operation. The message is that anyone can be a hero.”
I suggested to Jeff that having survived his ordeal, the BS he encounters with his Canadian Football League officiating job no longer bothers him. “Nothing bothers me any more,” he answered with a wide grin.