FACT: NHL legend Rod Brind'Amour deserves to be in the Hockey Hall-of-Fame.
For too long, Brind'Amour has been snubbed by the HHOF selection committee despite a lengthy resume of accolades and accomplishments.
But before we get too deep into why 'Rod the Bod' is a deserving nominee, let's get one thing straight; the Hockey Hall-of-Fame selection process is terrible.
A group of 18 voters can select a maximum of four male players - in addition to two female players, two builders, and a referee/linesman - for induction into the Hall.
To be considered, you have to have been retired for at least three seasons, and then to be selected you have to appear on 75% of the ballots, so you have to appear on at least 14 of the 18 ballots.
They don't reveal who all received votes because the ballot is secret and selecting members don't even have to vote for the maximum number of nominations, they are just "entitled" to.
The committee also does not consider the entire body of work of a person. So for example, a players time as a coach would have no bearing on the committee's consideration for their induction as a player.
So the whole selection process is shrouded in secrecy, the public gets no insight into how the committee evaluates or discusses players, and just 18 people - the smallest committee of the four North American major league sports - get to decide who gets the privilege of being a Hall-of-Famer, meaning it takes just five people to effectively block a nomination.
The process sucks, but it is what it is, so let's pivot back to the criteria for selection and why Brind'Amour is a deserving nomination.
According to the Hockey Hall-of-Fame's website, the criteria for consideration for player selection is "playing ability, sportsmanship, character and contributions to his or her team or teams and to the game of hockey in general."
So let's start with those:
Playing Ability
Drafted by the St. Louis Blues 9th overall in 1988, Brind'Amour was thrown into the deep end to start his NHL career, coming into a playoff series against the Minnesota North Stars as an 18-year old.
But Brind'Amour made a statement, scoring his first ever goal to help the Blues beat the North Stars in Game 5 and advance to the Norris Division Finals.
A complete package player, Brind'Amour was as much a physical, shutdown, gritty center as he was a scoring threat. While he didn't have as high of a peak as some of his contemporaries, what made his legacy was the longevity of his 20-year career.
Brind'Amour never shyed away from the big moments, having scored 111 points in 159 playoff games including leading the Hurricanes in goals (12) en route the Stanley Cup.
He was in fact never one to shy away from any moment, with 1,184 points (53rd all time) in 1,484 games (25th all time) - he is one of 92 players to be a part of the 1,000 games played and 1,000 points club.
He finally got the defensive recognition he had garnered and deserved later in his career, as his two Selkes came off the back of two monstrous seasons (2005-06, 2006-07) in the twilight of his playing days.
Brind'Amour was also a special teams wizard.
On the man advantage, his 149 power play goals rank 56th all time and his 397 power play points rank 64th all time.
But it was shorthanded where he excelled as his 56 shorthanded points rank 10th all time in NHL history.
He is also regarded as one of the games greatest faceoff specialists, with the 6th most faceoff wins in NHL history and a 58.74% total win rate which ranks 4th all time and 1st among players with at least 15,000 draws.
He also was an NHL All-Star and an Olympian, but his greatest accolade was the fact that he captained his team to a Stanley Cup, while playing nearly 24 minutes a night - more than any other skater on the team - all at the age of 35.
Brind'Amour was a complete force of a player, one who combined the grit and work ethic of a fringe player with the top-end talent that cemented himself in the top-50 or higher of so many statistical categories.
Sportsmanship and Character
You'll be hard pressed to find anybody in hockey as honest and genuine as Brind'Amour.
While that has come to the forefront more so in recent years as his coaching tenure has lengthened, Brind'Amour has always stayed true to himself.
Ask anybody who played with him and they'll tell you how beloved Roddy was on the ice and in the locker room, because in all walks of life, Brind'Amour did things 'the right way.'
A family-man before all else, Brind'Amour has long harped the value of family as being the forefront of his life.
The long-time Canes captain was also a generous man, having been awarded the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal for his longtime support of the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
He also simply embodied the spirit of hockey, a game which markets itself as the one for the selfless, for the team players and for those that have to work hard for everything.
That is who Brind'Amour is.
Contributions to his teams and to the game of hockey in general
Do you know how well respected you have to be to be genuinely loved in the city of Philadelphia despite not winning a championship there?
Brind'Amour was enshrined in the Flyer's team Hall-of-Fame in 2015 and he's still a beloved figure there today.
A near unprecedented feat.
But perhaps more important than that, there is no single player that has meant more to the Carolina Hurricanes than Rod Brind'Amour.
He changed the trajectory of the team and defined what it meant to be a Hurricane and it was thanks to Brind'Amour's leadership, as he took his the team to the Stanley Cup, that hockey caught a spark in Raleigh.
It was Brind'Amour that catalyzed the team to new heights and it was under his captaincy that the franchise's greatest moment occurred.
In addition, Brind'Amour's commitment to fitness and exercise as a player - and beyond - has also has bled into modern NHL regiments and training.
A tireless gym rat, Brind'Amour never took a day for granted, pushing his body and fitness to the limit all in a pursuit to stay healthy and on the ice and that has come across in how the Hurricanes and other teams now go about conditioning.
Too often, these debates become centered around someone being more deserving or not than other inductees and I feel those types of arguments do more harm than good.
The Hall can't un-induct players just as much as they can't arbitrarily change the criteria they've run with for so long in naming those very players.
So all I'll say, is that there are players with worse resumes than Brind'Amour who, even very recently, made it into the Hall of Fame.
Therefore, it's about time the committee stop playing around and finally induct one the game's best.