Few sports have the kind of history and tradition that hockey does.
The family links, the rugged devotion to cherished symbols of excellence, and the oddball characters that so color hockey's past. Baseball comes close, with fellas like Dizzy Dean, Babe Ruth, and Rube Waddell, but other than the Ripkens, and perhaps, the Boones, there's no real sense of family. At least, not a celebrated one. On the other hand, any true hockey fan knows of the Sutters, the Hulls, the Richards. Hockey, perhaps more so than any other sport, is handed down from generation to generation.