Hall of fame forced to go digital with 2020 voting
Electronic system could replace paper ballots, in-person board meeting
The Hockey Hall of Fame will hold an electronic vote via teleconference for its 2020 inductees, ending its traditional paper ballots and in-person board meeting because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The 18 members of the voting committee will instead debate each of the nominees remotely on June 23 and cast their ballots for this year’s class the following day.
“As far as I know, it’s always been in-person,” Jeff Denomme, president of the Hockey Hall of Fame, told the Star on Wednesday. “I know that some of the people already commented that what they’re going to miss this year is that camaraderie and the ability to have those personal meetings, but nonetheless we have to deal with what we were dealing with.”
In the past, Hall chair Lanny McDonald and Denomme have been the scrutineers for the paper ballots, but they had to come up with an electronic solution to deal with the fact the 18 voters will not be travelling to Toronto as usual because of COVID-19.
Depending how the electronic voting system responds, it could be here to stay.
“This voting system we developed actually might work very well and be more efficient in the future because we can use it on tablets within the meeting and make the balloting more efficient,” Denomme said.
The nominees have already been determined, though their names are kept secret. The deadline for the 18 voters — and indeed any member of the public — to nominate players, officials or builders was April 15.
Some likely to warrant consideration include Jarome Iginla, Marian Hossa and Shane Doan, all of whom are eligible for the first time. Players must not have played professional hockey anywhere for at least three seasons to be considered for enshrinement. The likes of Daniel Alfredsson and Alexander Mogilny, for example, have been eligible for some time but have yet to receive the requisite number of votes.
To gain induction, a player, builder or owner must garner at least 14 of the 18 votes. There’s a maximum of eight inductees a year from four male players, two female players, one official and either one or two builders, depending on whether an official made the cut.
The Hall this week sent out its elections manual, which has the biographical material on the nominees as well as other information on bylaws that are up for review.
The Hall’s voting members are a mix of former players, current executives and media members including John Davidson, David Branch, Brian Burke, Cassie Campbell-Pascall, Mark Chipman, Bob Clarke, Marc de Foy, Michael Farber, Ron Francis, Mike Gartner, Anders Hedberg, Jari Kurri, Igor Larionov, Pierre McGuire, Bob McKenzie, Mike Murphy, David Poile and Luc Robitaille.
For now, the induction ceremony is set for Nov. 16, but that too could change given the pandemic and the uncertainty surrounding the NHL’s schedule.
Like every other museum and most other businesses, the Hall is closed to patrons. Some staff —the ones in the stores selling merchandise and selling tickets for admission — have been laid off but 38 employees remain, Denomme said. “When you have no revenue coming in, obviously it’s tough to manage through,” he said. “We naturally had to layoff our front-line guest services and retail service people, but we have not done so with our 38 fulltime salaried employees. We’ve certainly benefited from the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy.”
Those still working are tasked with catching up on a backlog of artifacts and digitizing Hall archives.
“We have an opportunity now to maybe catch up on the vast material we have,” Denomme said.
Another tradition that is at risk: the summertime tour of the Stanley Cup. Each player on the winning team typically gets at least a day with the Cup, usually celebrating the win in his hometown. The NHL seems committed to continuing this season and crowning a champion, but no one is sure of anything at this point.
“We’re not certain what is going to transpire,” Denomme said. “We’re usually pretty busy over the summer with those activities and we actually provide those services to the league and the Stanley Cup champion.
“And that is actually a revenue source that obviously will not happen, and so there’s another loss in the column of how this virus is affecting our business.”