Lindros had been to the Hall of Fame before, for his brother Brett's retirement announcement and charity events. So he had probably been in the Great Hall before. But if he had, he didn't remember. He certainly had never, as he put it, "cruised through" and absorbed all the history.
As he waited for the ring ceremony, he stood quietly and read some of the plaques. After he received his ring, he sat on a chair while fellow inductee Sergei Makarov spoke, staring at his ring in the box, taking it out carefully, trying it on, turning it over in his fingers like the prized possession it was. He later fumbled it, dropped it and scrambled to find it. As he waited to do a TV interview, he looked around. The Great Hall is an old bank but feels like a church.
"Quite the place, eh?" he said.
Lindros lives 10 minutes away. One day recently, his wife told him to drive by to see if their son Carl Pierre, 2, would recognize his face on a banner on the side of the building.
"Hockey! Daddy!"
Last weekend, the Oshawa Generals, Lindros' Ontario Hockey League team, held a ceremony to acknowledge his Hall of Fame induction. Father brought son along, and the boy waved to the crowd, dropped the puck and stood still for the national anthem.
"Couldn't believe it," Lindros said with a smile.
One day, when they're a little older and can understand, Lindros will be able to bring Carl Pierre and twins Ryan Paul and Sophie Rose, 1, to the Hockey Hall of Fame. They will be able to see the plaques of Gretzky, Lemieux, Messier … and Dad.
"Oh, for sure," Lindros said. "We'll be popping by. That's a given."