Key Takeaways
- Six people enter the Hockey Hall of Fame tonight in Toronto: players Patrice Bergeron, Carey Price, Pekka Rinne, Keith Tkachuk and Cindy Curley, plus builder Brian Burke.
- Price spent all 15 of his NHL seasons with Montreal and remains the Canadiens' all-time leader in games (712) and wins (361) by a goaltender.
- The induction ceremony starts at 7:30 p.m. ET at the Hall, with the broadcast at 8 p.m. on TSN.
Two Canadian Icons Take Their Place Tonight
The Hockey Hall of Fame opens its doors to six new members tonight in Toronto — and two of them defined a generation of Canadian hockey. Carey Price and Patrice Bergeron headline the Class of 2026, announced June 22 and inducted this evening at the Hall in Brookfield Place, with the ceremony at 7:30 p.m. ET (broadcast at 8 p.m. on TSN4 and TSN5).
Price's case was never really in doubt. In 15 seasons — every one of them with the Montreal Canadiens — he became the franchise's all-time goaltending leader with 712 games and 361 wins, and in 2015 he swept the Hart Trophy, the Vezina Trophy and the Ted Lindsay Award in a single season, something no goaltender had done. He carried Montreal to the 2021 Stanley Cup Final and added a Masterton Trophy in 2022.
Bergeron, the class's only first-year-eligible inductee, spent 19 seasons in Boston after being drafted 45th overall in 2003. He scored the Stanley Cup–winning goal in 2011, won the Selke Trophy a record six times as the league's best defensive forward, and joined the Triple Gold Club with Olympic gold in 2010 and 2014 and a World Championship title.
The Rest of the Class
Pekka Rinne backstopped the Nashville Predators for 15 seasons, retiring as the franchise's leader with 369 wins and 60 shutouts — both also records for a Finnish-born goaltender — with a Vezina Trophy in 2018. Keith Tkachuk was the first U.S.-born player to lead the NHL in goals (52 for Phoenix in 1996-97) and finished with 538 goals and 1,065 points, one of only three players ever with 500 goals and 2,000 penalty minutes.
Cindy Curley is the class's history lesson. The longtime captain of the U.S. women's national team graduated from Providence College as its all-time leader in goals (110) and assists (115), won World Championship silver in 1990, 1992 and 1994 — and her 23 points at the 1990 worlds remain the tournament's single-event scoring record, more than three decades later.
In the Builder category, Brian Burke enters after an executive career spanning six NHL organizations since 1987, including building the Anaheim Ducks' 2007 Stanley Cup champions as general manager. He later co-founded the You Can Play project in 2012 and in 2023 became the first executive director of the PWHL Players' Association.
Tonight in Toronto
Induction Weekend began Saturday with the annual Hall of Fame Game hosted by the Maple Leafs. Tonight's gala doors open at 5:30 p.m., with the induction ceremony — speeches and plaque presentations from the Allen Lambert Galleria — at 7:30.
The Twikup Take
Price and Bergeron were rivals for a decade in hockey's fiercest rivalry, and they go in together — the calmest goaltender of his era beside the most complete two-way centre of his. Some classes are debated for years; this one mostly explains itself.
Image: Carey Price, Canadian ice hockey player, in 2015 by Christophe95, CC BY-SA 4.0.