On Tuesday, the Hockey Hall of Fame announced their four newest members.
Ed Belfour, Doug Gilmour, Joe Nieuwendyk and Mark Howe will make up the class of 2011.
As far as I am concerned, the voters made four excellent and inspired choices. While I feel you could have made a strong case for Pavel Bure, all four members in 2011 are more than worthy of being inducted.
However, there is one glaring omission from that list.
Pat Burns.
I am really not sure why Burns didn't get in? The voting for the Hall is shrouded in mystery and air tight secrecy. We will never know how close or how far Burns was away from getting in.
We won't even get to find out why exactly voting members decided to exclude Burns from the builder's category.
Make no mistake; Burns deserves to be in the Hockey Hall of Fame, the man had an impressive coaching resume.
501 career wins, three times the coach of the year with three different teams, a Stanley Cup Champion; and on and on it goes.
In 1988, Burns took over a solid Montreal Canadiens team that had won 45 games the year before and in his rookie year he guided the Habs to 53 wins and an appearance in the Stanley Cup final, where they lost to the Calgary Flames.
In 1992, Burns took over a Toronto Maple Leafs team that was trying to emerge from a decade of futility and hardship.
A year earlier the Leafs won a total of 30 games and finished with 67 points. In Burns first year in Toronto, the Leafs won 44 games and finished with 99 points.
The real magic of the 1992/93 season took place in the post season where the team, led by the newest member of the Hall, Doug Gilmour, came within one win of the Stanley Cup final.
Few Leafs fans will ever forget that inspired playoff run in the spring of 1993, after years of being viewed as a laughing stock around the NHL, the Leafs suddenly mattered again.
There were many factors in the Leafs rebirth, but right at the top of the list was the coaching acumen and the hard nosed attitude of Burns.
In an incident that is burned in the memories of all Leafs fans, Burns had to be held back by a Toronto police constable on duty that night at Maple Leaf Gardens, when he decided to go after Barry Melrose and throw his cheesy mullet onto Carlton Street.
It all started when Marty McSorley hammered Gilmour coming across the blue line, which then resulted in a bout of epic proportions between McSorley and Wendel Clark. There was bedlam at the Gardens and at that moment Burns decided he wanted to kick Melrose's butt.
That incident perfectly summed up the attitude of Burns and made his players love him even more.
Burns never won a Stanley Cup in Toronto, but he went a long way to rekindling pride in the Maple Leafs logo again.
After Toronto, Burns ended up in Boston and lastly in New Jersey. It was with the Devils in 2003 that Burns finally won that all elusive Stanley Cup.
Shortly after he lost his brave battle against cancer, the Montreal Canadiens made this moving tribute to a great coach and a man who dedicated his entire life to hockey.
Say what you want, nobody does pre-game tributes in the NHL better than the Montreal Canadiens.
All those players, coaches, media members and fans who are confused as to why Burns didn't get in this year, all you can do is wait until next year.
Hopefully at that time the voters will do the right thing and put Pat Burns where he belongs, in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
