Jari Kurri and Darryl Sittler are in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Kurri won Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers and scored a lot of points with a great amount of help from Wayne Gretzky. Darryl Sittler never won a Stanley Cup and at best finished third in league scoring during the 1977-78 NHL season. Sittler was never a fifty goal scorer.

Ken Hodge is not in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Hodge played parts of fourteen seasons in the NHL between the Chicago Black Hawks, Boston Bruins and New York Rangers. It was as a Bruin that Ken’s hockey career flourished.

With the Bruins, Hodge was an integral part of the team winning two Stanley Cups, 1969-70 and 1971-72. In 1973-74, Hodge and the Bruins went to the finals again but succumbed to the Philadelphia Flyers. Over his playoff career with the Bruins, Ken averaged a point per game.

Hodge appeared in the NHL’s top ten point getters three times during his career. Like Kurri with Gretzky, it is said that Hodge would never have done this without the help of perennial line-mate, Phil Esposito. Regardless, Ken finished fifth in 1968-69 with 90 points, fourth in 1970-71 with 105 points and third in 1973-74 with again 105 points.

In 1971 and 1974, Ken was named to the NHL’s First Team All-Star squad. He played in three all-star games, 1971, 1973 and 1974. He reached the magical fifty goal plateau during the 1973-74 season when he scored exactly fifty.

Hodge’s hockey success started long before the days of the ‘Big Bad Boston Bruins’. Ken played three seasons of junior hockey with the St. Catherines Black Hawks of the Ontario Hockey Association. In his final season in St. Catherines, 1964-65, Ken scored 63 goals and added 60 assists for 123 points in just 55 games. Hodge made the OHA’s First Team All-Star squad that season as well as winning the Eddie Powers Trophy as the league’s top point getter.

Like Kurri, Hodge scored a lot of points with the help of a superstar but never won any major individual awards (Kurri won the Lady Byng, but...). Both won Stanley Cups but had their careers diminish without the aid of their great line mates.

Like Sittler, Hodge never won the scoring title, but did win two Stanley Cups, finished in the top ten point getters on three different occasions and reached the fifty goal plateau.

Another Boston Bruins was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2005. Cam Neely, like Hodge, had his career hampered by injury. Neely did reach fifty goals on more than one occasion but never won a Stanley Cup.

I truly believe that the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee should take another look at this great hockey player. For years, hockey activists have been lobbying for the inclusion of Paul Henderson into The Hall. Henderson was a hero at the 1972 Summit Series for Canada. Before and after that series, Henderson was nothing but an average player. If Henderson gets in, there’s no reason why Ken Hodge should also be inducted.