Hall of Fame Class entertains, share memories at Fan Forum

TORONTO -- Carey Price shares one thing in common with every goaltender who played in his era -- the former Montreal Canadiens goalie never liked facing Alex Ovechkin and his one-timer from the left face-off circle.

"I think everyone knows the answer to this question," Price said, smiling as he talked. "He gets over there in a spot and he gets to wire one a hundred miles at you from 30 feet away 12 times a game."

Price offered that obvious tidbit about Ovechkin, the NHL's all-time leader with 930 goals, at the ESSO Inductee Fan Forum inside the Great Hall at the Hockey Hall of Fame on Sunday.

The Fan Forum, an annual event at Hockey Hall of Fame Weekend, is an hour-long intimate Q&A session where fans in attendance are given the opportunity to ask the player inductees questions that typically range from career highlights and memories to advice they would offer to kids who want to be like them.

Price, sitting on the dais with fellow Class of 2026 inductees Keith Tkachuk and Pekka Rinne to his right, and Cindy Curley and Patrice Bergeron to his left, talked about Ovechkin in response to a question from a bilingual Canadiens fan who said he was from Sturgeon Falls, Ontario.

"He always seemed to bring his best, especially when he came to Montreal," Price said. "He's just a competitive guy by nature and he just brought it when he played specifically, I think. He's definitely probably the toughest player I played against."

Rinne was asked to answer the same question after Price, and the former Nashville Predators goalie initially said he was thankful he only had to face Ovechkin twice a year.

"Patrick Kane was one of those guys," Rinne said. "We played Chicago all the time and had some great battles over the years. Obviously, he's so talented. He might be a little more of a pass-first guy, but he can still score and I always felt you had to get ready whenever you played against Patty."

That question, and those answers, were among the many highlights from the Fan Forum. Here are some of the best moments:

* Douglass Berg walked into the Great Hall wearing his #RINNEWALL foam headgear on top of his Predators hat. He also had on his Predators cape, necklace and jersey. His wife, Sally Berg, wore her Predators jersey with the No. 59 on the back and CRAZY ASIAN as the nameplate.

Douglass stood up and screamed for Rinne when he was being introduced by TSN commentator Gino Reda, who hosted the event. Rinne pointed over to him, laughed and smiled, and later thanked Douglass for being there as he clearly has seen him many times over the years.

Berg kicked off the fan part of the Q&A by asking Rinne, "If there's a 2-on-1 coming toward you, what defensive guy from the Preds do you want in front of you? We don't want a political answer, we want a name."

Rinne called it a tough question, but to no surprise he answered Shea Weber, a member of the Hall of Fame's Class of 2024.

"Shea is one of the best to ever play," Rinne said.

* All five player inductees were asked to name the favorite team they played for in their careers.

Tkachuk needled at the Canadian hockey fans in attendance with his answer.

"My favorite group was probably the 1996 World Cup team," Tkachuk said, referencing playing on the United States team that won the tournament.

Reda interjected by asking, "How did you guys do that year?"

"We pounded Canada," Tkachuk said.

Tkachuk also joked that he was the only player on the stage who had been traded a few times.

"So, I guess that's on me," he said to a chorus of laughter.

Bergeron said his favorite team was the Boston Bruins' 2011 Stanley Cup championship team. Rinne said it was the Predators' 2017 team that went to the Stanley Cup Final, and Price answered similarly, naming the Canadiens' 2021 team that went to the Final.

Curley answered with her team when she was a freshman at Providence College in 1981-82.

* Rinne told a story about who influenced him to become a goalie, crediting his two cousins, seven and nine years older than him.

"It started in street hockey when I was four or five years old," Rinne said. "My cousin, Jari, he was a goalie. He's seven years older than me and automatically I looked up to him. I just thought he was the coolest thing ever wearing the goalie gear, so I pretty much fell in love with the position right away."

Rinne said his cousins (he didn't name the second one) would shoot pucks at him when he was five years old, calling himself "a tiny little thing."

He's 6-foot-5.

"I would start crying and run inside," Rinne said. "Then I'd come outside, go knock on their door, 'Guys can you come back and shoot some more pucks?' That's how it started."

* The inductees were asked if there was one team they always secretly wished they could play for. The person asking the question was wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, so Reda took the opportunity to see if Price might start a little fun controversy.

"Carey, your face lit up when he asked that question," Reda said. "Was there a team in particular that stood out in your mind. Like, he's wearing a Leafs jersey. Is that what you're thinking?"

Price had a very quick response.

"Most certainly not," he said to applause in the room.

Price continued by saying there is not another team he ever desired to play for in the NHL than the Canadiens.

Bergeron said the same about the Bruins, though he noted that getting a chance to play with Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg would have been nice. He was a fan of the Quebec Nordiques growing up, and said Sakic was his idol and Forsberg was his favorite player.

* Tkachuk, in response to the same question about a team he secretly wished he could have played for, went on a bit of a tangent with his answer, noting the amount of Bruins and Canadiens fans in the audience.

"We could never do this in the '70s and '80s with a bunch of Montreal and Boston fans here," he said. "There would have been a melee."

* Tkachuk, who grew up in Boston, was poignantly asked by a fan from Boston (you could tell by the accent and the Bruins jersey), "What was your greatest moment as a youth that made your dad proud?"

He spoke from the heart about his dad, John.

"My dad worked really hard," Tkachuk said. "He was a Boston fireman for 40-plus years and had a second job just to support me and my siblings. But I think, just, honestly, when I committed to Boston University he was the happiest guy alive because he knew that I was staying at home and he can go to games. 

"He's just one of those guys, a true Bostonian, a man of very few words. He's a super guy. He was a Marine, two tours in Vietnam. That's the guy who should be in the Hall of Fame, not me."