Utah HC gets its first member of the Hockey Hall of Fame next week (kind of)

The Utah Hockey Club’s own Shea Weber will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame next week.
The hard-hitting defenseman hasn’t played a game since the 2021 Stanley Cup Final. The Montreal Canadiens, whom he played for at the time, traded his contract to the Vegas Golden Knights after it became clear that a foot injury would prevent him from playing again. The Golden Knights traded him to the Arizona Coyotes, who then became Utah HC.
He’s in the penultimate season of his 14-year, $110 million contract — the second-most valuable deal in NHL history. He signed it as an offer sheet with the Philadelphia Flyers, but his Nashville Predators matched it without hesitation.
The Predators would later trade Weber to the Canadiens for PK Subban in one of the craziest 23-minute spans in NHL history.
Those who played against Weber hoped that they never had to share the ice with him. In addition to being effective on both sides of the puck, he played a mean, physical game that few players do in this day and age. When he was on the ice, guys had to keep their heads up.
Weber was also known for his shot — one of the hardest in NHL history. He proved that at four different NHL All-Star games, winning the hardest shot competition. But as cool as the bragging rights were, Weber’s focus was the competitive advantage it gave him in games.
“There was a side of it, too, where other guys were watching it and they’re thinking twice about, maybe, sticking themselves in front of it and blocking it,” Weber said on the “NHL Induction Class” podcast with Kenny Alberts.
He’s also on a short list of players to have blasted a shot through the back of a net in a game, which he did during the 2010 Olympics.
Weber won the gold medal in both 2010 and 2014 with Team Canada, playing major roles on both teams. He scored six points in seven games the first go-around, followed by six points in six games the next time.
He also won the Memorial Cup, the Ed Chynoweth Cup, World Championship gold and silver, World Cup of Hockey gold and World Junior Championship gold.
Weber is a product of Sicamous, British Columbia, which is among the most efficient cities in the world at producing NHL players. With a population of 2,600, the “Houseboat Capital of Canada” has seen 15 of its players go to the NHL — but none is more revered than Weber, who has a street named after him.
Though they knew he would never play for them, acquiring Weber made sense for the Coyotes for two reasons:
The draft pick they received was a fifth-rounder in 2023, which they used to select defenseman Justin Kipkie. Fifth-round picks are always long shots to make the NHL, but Kipkie is in his third highly productive WHL season and probably has a better shot at cracking an NHL roster than most of the people drafted around him.
He currently has 11 points in 11 games with the Victoria Royals. Remember that he’s a defenseman.
Being a team that notoriously struggled for money, it was important for the Coyotes to save wherever they could. The collective bargaining agreement mandates that each team spends a minimum amount of money on player salaries each year — but it takes average annual value into account, rather than actual money.
Weber’s cap hit is $7,857,143, but most of that had previously been paid in signing bonuses. The team owed Weber just $1 million per year in real money, so they got almost $8 million closer to the cap floor while leaving the owner’s bank account alone.
Joining Weber in the Hockey Hall of Fame this year are star NHL forwards Pavel Datsyuk and Jeremy Roenick, star college and international forwards Natalie Darwitz and Krissy Wendell-Pohl, long-time NHL executive Colin Campbell and the general manager who drafted Weber, David Poile.
For obvious reasons, Weber is highly fond of the latter.
“David and Nashville gave me a chance,” he told Alberts in the podcast. “I wouldn’t be here today without them. They took a chance drafting me, and not only that — there’s so much that goes into it. Giving me a chance to play, believing in me, having confidence in me over the years, naming me captain. I mean, I can’t say enough about the nice things they’ve done for me. It’s pretty cool to be going to the Hall of Fame with a guy that I’ve known for such a long time and has had such an impact on my career.”
The induction ceremony is part of a three-day celebration in Toronto, beginning on Friday and concluding on Monday.