Price, Bergeron lead Hockey Hall of Fame class inducted Monday

Former Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price and longtime Boston Bruins centre Patrice Bergeron headline the Hockey Hall of Fame’s 2026 class, which is inducted Monday night in Toronto.

Goaltender Pekka Rinne, forward Keith Tkachuk and Cindy Curley, a pioneer of the women’s game, join them in the player category. Former NHL executive Brian Burke goes in as a builder, The Canadian Press reported.

Price, who grew up in the remote community of Anahim Lake, B.C., played all 15 of his NHL seasons in Montreal and enters the hall in his second year of eligibility. The fifth overall pick in the 2005 draft, he won the Hart Trophy as league MVP and the Vezina Trophy as top goaltender in 2015, and won Olympic gold with Canada in 2014.

He said he got the call in June while driving to visit his grandmother in hospital. “I’m just extremely thankful for that journey and everything that I learned along the way, not only in hockey but in life,” Price said at the hall on Saturday.

Bergeron, from L’Ancienne-Lorette, Que., spent his entire 19-season career with the Bruins, won the Stanley Cup in 2011 and a record six Selke Trophies as the NHL’s best defensive forward, and won two Olympic gold medals with Canada.

Rinne, a Finn, won the Vezina in 2018 with Nashville. Tkachuk, an American, scored 538 NHL goals over 18 seasons. Burke was general manager of the 2007 Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks.

The induction ceremony is Monday evening at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.