IIHF Hall of Fame 2017 Inductees Announced

This year's crop of International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Hall of Fame inductees include five former players: Saku Koivu (Finland), Uwe Krupp (Germany), Angela Ruggiero (USA), Joe Sakic (Canada), and Teemu Selanne (Finland), and one builder: Dieter Kalt (Austria). They also selected Tony Hand to receive the Richard “Bibi” Torriani Award, and Patrick Francheterre to receive the Paul Loicq Award.

When I saw this news, I was excited because, lo and behold, an American woman is being inducted into the hall of fame! That got me wondering how many other women have been so honored. Actually, there are quite a number of women from several countries, including the USA, that have been inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame since its beginning in 1997.

By Sara Melikian (originally posted to Flickr as #4 Angela Ruggiero2) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Angela Ruggiero was a defensemen on the US women's national ice hockey team, and won medals in four successive Winter Olympics games, and 10 Women's World Championships. She retired from playing in 2011, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame* in 2015.

*Note: Hockey Hall of Fame is different than IIHF Hall of Fame. As you can imagine, there is a bit of overlap between these two Halls of Fames, and some would argue that one is "better" than the other... Anyhoo...Ruggiero was the fourth female player to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, and she completes the set with this year's nod from the IIHF.