F$@& Sports Tangents

Dan "Duke" Davis is retiring and appeared on ESPN's Mike and Mike this morning and they quizzed him on who the best players he had ever seen were.  Duke was quite up front with saying I am always going to pick the players I grew up with over modern guys.

So my 3 readers, who was the your favorite and who was the best you ever saw?  Limiting my scope to hockey since that's the only sport I regularly watch, although I could probably talk football and baseball credibly.  Feel free to comment on those.

My favorite Center and Player ever is Dale Hawerchuk.  I don't have like any good reasons, except when I first joined the RLHL he was my best player and had a long career with Winnipeg, a city I lived in for 2 years 35 years ago.  Dale was very good at a lot of things, probably known more as a passer than a scorer and was generally over shadowed my Gretzky, Lemiuex, Yzerman, and Messier.  You know the famous for a reason centers in the 80s.

Now the best center I ever saw was not Gretzky (this is going to similarly eliminate Bobby Orr from defense).  See Gretzky had his mind blowing years before I started really following hockey.  He did lead the league in scoring a couple years in the early 90s, but by that time he was clearly on the back end of his career and his contemporaries caught up.  The best center I ever saw was Forsberg.   I loved everything about Forsberg's game.  He made his linemates better, he was a ferocious defender and gave his share of shoulder checks.  Too bad he couldn't stay healthy and made horrible Face off Hockey Cards.

A quick word on my favorite Blues center, Craig Conroy.  He was like Forsberg light.  He did make his linemates better, he was a great defender, he was just goal scoring impaired.  Conroy on a breakaway wasn't really all that exciting...








My favorite and best I ever saw winger is the same guy.  Teemu Selanne.  Teemu does fall short in the all around game department, but he really is good at keeping possession of the puck and working for a good shot.  Wasn't nearly electric as Pavel Bure, but in my opinion an overall more consistent performer.

Favorite Blues Winger, Brett Hull who else.

Best. One. Timer. Ever.

He really had a knack for getting open in the slot for those couple of seconds needed to get that one timer off.

My favorite defenseman was Adam Foote.   Known as a ferocious defender, I really felt his over all game was under rated.  He was quite mobile, and very very good at making the first pass out of the zone.

Best I ever saw was Al MacInnis, who is also my favorite Blues defenseman.  Ok the slap shot got him into the HoF, but his overall game was really really good as well.  The Blues defensive play noticeably improved in 1994-95 (that was back when we still liked Keenan...).   Thanks for the memories Al.




Best Goalie I ever saw:  Hasek.  He carried a marginal Buffalo for years, almost winning a cup there.  Got onto a good team and Detroit dominated.  (pun intended I dunno?)

Favorite Goalie:  Don't really have a favorite, probably CuJo because he sure was fun to watch as a Blue.