Francis: The sublime setup man

Tonight, Ron Francis joins hockey's biggest legends

TORONTO -- It was on a family tour of the steel mill where Ron Francis' father worked that he imparted one of the two major pieces of advice Francis still remembers today.

A catwalk runs over the spot where the steel rails slide out of the oven, still glowing hot, and a giant saw cuts them to length, and there his father halted to take in the view.

"It's noisy and it's loud and it's hot and the saw is buzzing and the rails are there," Francis said. "I remember him grabbing me on top of the bridge and stopping and he said 'You see all this?' I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'Make sure you go to school.' "

(The other piece of advice, after a day Francis spent in net, was not to play goalie.)

But Francis, 44, didn't get a chance to go to school. He was in the NHL at 18, drafted fourth overall by the Hartford Whalers off his hometown junior team. Even that was beyond his father's expectations.

"We had hoped that probably in the end he'd be good enough to get a scholarship or some education through hockey," his father, also Ron, said this week. "That was about the extent of it."

As it turns out, Francis' academic degree is an honorary one, awarded by Lake Superior State in 1998 to recognize his charity work; his doctorate in hockey will be affirmed tonight when he is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

"This is the pinnacle of our sport as far as individual honors," Francis said. "To be invited into this very special and very unique club is really special. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to getting that blazer."

A list of hockey luminaries will be there in Francis' honor, including former teammates Tom Barrasso, Ed Olczyk, Jay Caufield, Kevin Dineen, Greg Millen, Dave Keon and Bryan Trottier, along with former Whalers owner Howard Baldwin, Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos and general manager Jim Rutherford.

All contributed in one way or another to Francis' playing career, and without them he would not be here. A player who made his mark creating goals for other people needs those people to score, as Dineen most notably often did. (Only Jaromir Jagr scored more goals off Francis assists than Dineen's 79.)

A father's words stick

Ron Francis Sr. will be there as well. He has been in Toronto this weekend as his son indulges in the pomp and circumstance of induction weekend. He will be there tonight for the official ceremony.

But he has been there all along, because Francis never forgot his father's lessons, whether it was that day at the mill or the discussions after games or while watching Hockey Night in Canada on television.

Some were simple: Work hard. Play smart. Others were more complicated, and perhaps more influential to the player Francis would become.

"He always emphasized both ends of the rink," Francis said. "It was important to play defense, and if you stopped a goal, it was just as important as scoring a goal. He also emphasized the fact if you set up a goal, that was just as important as you scoring the goal yourself.

"That was how my game evolved, taking those concepts and working them into my game."

Each of the players going into the Hall with Francis has his own trademark. Mark Messier was the leader. Al MacInnis the shooter. Scott Stevens the punishing hitter.

Thanks to those chats with his father, Francis goes into the Hall as the thinker -- a truly cerebral player who saw the game a little better than those around him and flourished because of it.

A consistent presence

His father's influence was not limited to the way Francis played, but his dedication to the game as well. When the Hurricanes signed Francis as a free agent in 1998, they were criticized for giving a lucrative four-year contract to a player who would be 39 at the end of the deal.