Funny timing on this -- the NHLPA just did a survey of current players to find their opinions of the best among their ranks
and the best of all-time in various categories. As fans of hockey, as well as baseball and football (and former
beer-league players in the first two sports, in our much younger days), we engaged in some cordial argument
as to how disappointing or surprising (or not) was the players' knowledge or ignorance of their forerunners and
their game's history. This is the game to which they've devoted their lives, you'd expect them to know better, said one,
but almost all of these guys are under 30, they don't sit around reading about the game's history, countered another,
and a quarter of the players are Russian or European, you can't expect them to know NHL history, added the third.
Anyway, except for the obvious (and, ironically, correct) selection of Orr as best-ever defenceman, every other other guy
among the Top 5 on the All-Time lists (including the also correct choice of Gretzky as best forward, and excepting Dryden
among goalers) played well into the 1990s. Not even icons like Howe, Richard, Hull, or Esposito get a perceptible nod
among the list of forwards, for example, or Plante or Bower among goalers, let alone any guys at all from the pre-expansion era.
Clearly the NHL and the hockey media do a shamefully horrendous job (no surprise at all) of keeping the game's history
(even its relatively recent history) alive.
The few other hockey fans here can observe and argue:
http://www.NHLPA.com/player-poll/2017-18
So as we were gathered at one guy's home for another session of dice baseball, and between innings
discussing the NHL Poll and this Net54 thread, we decided to ask the resident Missus how many names she recognized
on Stampsfan Bob's list -- recognition biased by the fact that she knew in advance that this was a list of athletes,
not famous people from any field of endeavour, but recognition affirmed by whether she could name their sport.
It should be noted all parties involved are, um, let's just say well past 60, that the Missus was not a sports fan
of any real stripe until she was married, but that she's had to watch sports with her husband, in person and on TV,
and listen to him rattle on about baseball, hockey, football, and his sports memorabilia for over thirty years.
And now, the results of that trial:
Yes, and the sport they played, to every name on the list except for Bill Russell, AJ Foyt, George Mikan, and Bobby Jones.
Yes, but unsure of the sport ("football?") for Josh Gibson.
Based on posts subsequent to the OP and a few additions of our own, she was also asked about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,
Lew Alcindor, Larry Bird, Usain Bolt, Jim Brown, Juius Erving, George Foreman, George Halas, John Heisman,
Gordie Howe, Bruce Jenner, Michael Jordan, Carl Lewis, Diego Maradona, Jack Nicklaus, Bobby Orr, Jesse Owens,
Arnold Palmer, Jerry Rice, Cal Ripken, Sugar Ray Robinson, Ronda Rousey, Wanderlei Silva, Mark Spitz, Lawrence Taylor,
Mike Tyson, Tiger Woods, and Cy Young.
She nailed every one of 'em except for Silva (none of us had ever before heard the name either) and Halas,
except that she didn't know Jenner's sport ("diving? swimming?"), and didn't recognize Heisman's or Maradona's names
but immediately guessed their sport (we couldn'a told ya what Heisman was famous for besides the trophy, either,
although we coulda told ya all about Pop Warner and Knute Rockne). She was also able to provide a vague thumbnail history
of the Black Sox scandal, although she thought it was from the early 1930s.
Conclusion from this corner: she is every bit as smart as her hubby always says, she actually does listen to him
contrary to what he always says, and aside from that, pretty much no one under 40 knows or cares the least little damn thing
about anyone or anything whatsoever that happened more than a few months ago, dadgummit, by cracky.