Brian Sutter got a special phone call last week.
St. Louis once again wanted the Central Alberta hockey legend. He was told it was time for him to return to the American heartland city where he poured his heart and soul into the game of hockey for 16 years with the Blues: 12 years as a player, nine as captain and another four as coach.
“This is our sixth year and Brian was voted in this time,” said Greg Marecek, founder and president of the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame and former television play-by-play man for the Blues. “His number 11 jersey hangs in the rafters.
“Outside of the first three seasons, which were kind of tainted by the fact the teams we played were expansion teams, it was the best era of teams we had up to this year,” added Marecek.
When Sutter is formally inducted into the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame on Sept. 24 in front of more than 1,000 enthusiastic sports fans at the city's Grand Renaissance Hotel, he will be in special select company. He will be standing tall besides the likes of baseball's Stan Musial, Bob Gibson and Lou Brock; football's Dan Dierdorf and Jim Hart; basketball's Bob Pettit and Blues' giants Bernie Federko, Al MacInnis, Glenn Hall, Brett Hull, Garry Unger, Scotty Bowman and Red Berenson.
“I consider myself extremely lucky. I don't get caught up in accolades and stuff like that. I enjoy being with good people and that is what it is all about,” said Sutter, who just finished his second year as head coach with the Innisfail Eagles senior men's hockey team. “Is it special? Yes, it is really special. I am honoured to be put in the same sentence as those other guys – Joe Torre and Stan Musial, Dan Dierdorf and Jim Hart. These guys are great, great athletes in their own field.”
Joining Sutter in the 2014 awards class at the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame are baseball's Chris Carpenter – another Canadian, Orlando Cepeda, football's Aneaus Williams, hockey's Bob Plager, Olympic shot putter Connie Price Smith, basketball's Al Ferrari, soccer's Taylor Twellman, Washington University's John Schael, Olympian Kristin Folkl, baseball trainer Gene Gieselmann, NCAA basketball coach Harry Statham and college basketball official Ed Hightower.
Sutter, whose last year with the Blues organization was in 2005, said the City of St. Louis remains a special place for him and his family.
“My wife Judy would drop everything and move back there right now. It is a special part of the world,” said Sutter. “People don't talk about St. Louis very often but geographically, climate wise and standard of living and how you raise your kids, it is just a neat, neat part of the world. We consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have spent 16 years of our life there.”
Meanwhile, team officials with the Innisfail Eagles were beaming with pride last week when they learned their head coach was being honoured by the St. Louis sports community.
“He is in there with pretty good company, Glenn Hall and Scotty Bowman,” said team president Randy Graham. “Brian has a lot of heart and he cares about people and that endears him to a lot of people who he is in contact with. This community and team are lucky to have him. We congratulate Brian.”
