TORONTO – The career that took Eric Lindros to the Hockey Hall of Fame could have included one more unbelievable chapter.
Lindros had been retired from the NHL for more than four seasons when a call came from former Flyers GM Paul Holmgren in 2012 offering him a chance to join the team for the stretch run and playoffs.
His reply?
“Are you nuts?!” Lindros recalled Friday afternoon, after receiving his ring in a ceremony at the Hockey Hall.
Lindros stepped away from the sport at age 33 following the 2006-07 season with the Dallas Stars. He had mended the fences with the Flyers organization by skating in the Winter Classic alumni game at Citizens Bank Park on Dec. 31, 2011 – receiving a huge standing ovation from the crowd.
That Flyers team was on the way to a second-round playoff appearance and Holmgren was looking to make a big addition ahead of the trade deadline.
Unfortunately, Lindros wasn’t the least bit interested in taking him up on the comeback offer.
“Paul Holmgren called me after the outdoor game and started talking gibberish about cap space and things like that in Philadelphia,” he said. “We were playing in that baseball stadium and I think he had the worst seat in the house. He was up in the bleachers or something. I don’t know what game he was watching, but I got a call.
“And (I thought): ‘Geez are you kidding me?”’
Lindros continues to play shinny hockey twice a week near his home in Toronto and will formally be enshrined in the Hall alongside Sergei Makarov, Pat Quinn and Rogie Vachon on Monday night.
With the ceremony approaching, he was comfortable talking about the potential reunion he could have had with the Flyers – the team with whom he started his NHL career and enjoyed his most success.
At one point on Friday a reporter started asking Lindros a follow-up question about the call from Holmgren and he interrupted him mid-sentence: “I’m amazed too, eh?”
