clipped from sports.yahoo.com
TORONTO (AP) — On the day he accepted hockey’s greatest honor, Mark Messier remembered where it all began.
“It starts at home with the efforts put forth by your mother and father for all those early morning practices,” he said before Monday night’s ceremony. “All your minor-league hockey coaches who picked you up when your parents couldn’t get there, your brothers and sisters, and all the players and coaches that helped you along the way.”
“When people go through this hall 75 years from now, our plaques will be up there,” Messier said. “That’s pretty humbling.”
Messier, Francis, Stevens and MacInnis made the hall in their first year of eligibility, automatic inclusions that surprised no one. And they’re not done writing their hockey stories.
