Brodeur took star-studded path to Hockey Hall of Fame

TORONTO -- The photo op is the same each year. After receiving their rings in the Great Hall on Friday ahead of their induction on Monday, the members of the Hockey Hall of Fame's newest class line up across the stage holding sticks. They flip pucks into the air and try to catch them on their blades.

Martin Brodeur went 3-for-3 this year, making it look easy alongside Gary Bettman, Jayna Hefford, Willie O'Ree, Martin St. Louis and Aleksander Yakushev. But he had advantages: He was relatively young at 46. He held a goalie stick, so he could use the paddle. And if anyone should feel at home here, surrounded by glowing glass plaques of the legends of the game, posing for pictures, it should be him.
Brodeur was the rare player who knew, no doubt, on the day he played his last game, he would make the Hockey Hall of Fame.
"It's hard to say no, on paper and everything," he said. "You just sit there and wait for that phone call."
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Brodeur ranks first in NHL wins with 691, 140 more than the next best, Patrick Roy. He ranks first in shutouts with 125, 22 more than the next best, Terry Sawchuk. In other words, he isn't just No. 1 in those categories. He's No. 1 by massive margins.
He won the Calder Trophy as the NHL's rookie of the year (1993-94) and the Vezina Trophy as its best goaltender four times (2002-03, 2003-04, 2006-07, 2007-08). He won the Stanley Cup three times with the New Jersey Devils (1995, 2000, 2003) and Olympic gold twice with Canada (2002, 2010). Incredible career.

But it goes beyond that.
Brodeur grew up around many of these legends because his dad, Denis, a bronze-medal winning goalie for Canada at the 1956 Cortina d'Ampezzo Olympics, was the longtime photographer for the Montreal Canadiens. He got to tag along when his dad went to work at the Montreal Forum, looking up to the likes of Jean Beliveau and Guy Lafleur. Sometimes players came to the house for photo shoots in the basement.
It helped shape the person he became. His dad would tell him the good and the bad about the players.
"He wanted to make sure I was acting a certain way, and everything was about Jean Beliveau," Brodeur said with a smile. "But I'm like, 'This guy, nobody can be like him, Dad. I'm sorry. His autograph is, like, way too pretty. Like, everything's too nice. You can't be.' But I tried my best to be as close as possible as a gentleman."
Brodeur continued to be in the company of Hall of Famers. In his teens, Brodeur attended a camp run by Vladislav Tretiak. In the NHL, he played with the likes of Dave Andreychuk, Viacheslav Fetisov, Doug Gilmour, Igor Larionov, Scott Niedermayer and Scott Stevens. He was coached by Pat Burns, Jacques Lemaire and Larry Robinson.
"I forgot Lou," he said with a laugh as he went through the list.
How could he forget Lou Lamoriello? Well, Lamoriello was known more for being the Devils general manager than their coach for 53 games in Brodeur's time, and when the list is so long, it happens. The list is longer when you include the Olympics.
"I was fortunate to be around a lot of guys that made their mark in hockey," Brodeur said, "and definitely to be part of that group is pretty amazing."

Asked what drove him day after day, week after week, year after year, Brodeur said, "I just loved it. I think I was just really comfortable in my goalie equipment, just being in the net and being by myself for 60 minutes and talking to myself sometimes."
Hockey, he said, was his home, whether it was games, practices, the locker room or road trips. It was what he wanted to do. He started playing hockey when he was 4. In his mid-30s, friends started retiring. He'd ask them how retirement was going, and they'd tell him, "Eh, it's not really good, buddy. Keep going. Play as long as you can."
"And it kind of stayed in my head," he said. "I'm like, 'You know what? I'm going to try to stretch this thing [even if] they don't want me. They're going to have to kick me out.' And obviously that's what happened."
After 21 seasons and 1,259 regular-season games with the Devils, Brodeur, at 42, squeezed out seven more games with the St. Louis Blues in 2014-15. He worked in the Blues front office. He works for the Devils on the business side now. But the Great Hall is his home and will be forever, in a sense, with Beliveau and Lafleur and Roy and the rest.
Denis Brodeur died in 2013, believing his son was the best. What would he have said Friday when Martin received his ring and posed for that photo op?
"He would be ecstatic," Brodeur said. "He would be sitting right there taking pictures for sure."
Brodeur looked up to the heavens.
"He probably is, actually."