The Hall of Fame Game

I used to play alot of hockey in Eveleth Minnesota. We played in a big old arena where it always seemed colder inside than out. This in itself is remarkable as often it was often –25F outside. Famous people hail from Eveleth, people like the Hansen Brothers from the old Slapshot movie.

Eveleth also has the largest, open-pit mine in the world. “The city of Eveleth adjoins the great open pit mines of the Iron Ore Era with its man-made mountains of ore, and today's modern stockpiles of taconite pellets” reads the compelling advertisement for a local hotel. I wonder what the difference is between a “modern stockpile of taconite pellets” and an old one?

But most of all, it is home to the Hockey Hall of Fame. The Hockey Hall of Fame was rather important to me and I think it contained the remains of famous Minnesotans like Frank “Mr. Zero” Brimsek. And as hockey is secondary only to Finnish saunas and the Lutheran religion in MN, it was all very important.

But now that I think back, it did always seem like a very quiet place for a Hall of Fame. After all, it was a Hall of Fame. It turns out, there’s this other, CANADIAN, hall of fame. That makes it an International Hall of Fame. An important distinction by any standard. And it doesn’t stop there. There’s also a NHL Hockey Hall of Fame and undoubtedly Finnish and Swedish halls.

A little investigation turn up that there is a lot of redundancy in the hall of fame game. There are even multiple snowmobile hall’s of fame. The International Snowmobile Hall of Fame, in Bovey, Minnesota (pop. 662 with 326 houses). And this fact, the fact that a Minnesotan started a hall of fame pissed off the cheese-heads down south, so they started a Snowmobile Hall of Fame and Museum. I wonder why the Canadians haven’t gotten in on the game as a Canadian actually invented the bloody thing.

So I conclude that, like presidential libraries, this whole hall-of-fame thing seems to be getting out of hand. I may have to start a movement…