Should Paul Henderson be in the Hockey Hall of Fame?

It was the biggest goal in Canadian hockey history and, 50 years to the day it was scored, it still is.

In the moment, as the bulk of Canadians watched the feed from Moscow’s Luzhniki Ice Palace in the thick of the Cold War, Paul Henderson’s game winner in Game 8 of the 1972 Summit Series gave Team Canada a relief-inducing win over the Soviet Union.

Through the decades, it has come to be ranked among the greatest events in Canadian history. And given its gravity, it has long rankled many that Henderson, now age 79, is still not an honoured member of the Hockey Hall of Fame. It doesn’t seem right to some that the Canadian who scored the epochal goal is yet to be enshrined while the Soviet who failed to stop it, Vladislav Tretiak, was inducted in 1989.

Henderson has been handed nearly every other honour imaginable, sure. He is a member of Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame, and the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame. He has been awarded the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario. And he’s had no shortage of support from newspaper scribes and parliamentarians who have lobbied for his invitation to the annual induction ceremony at hockey’s Yonge Street shrine.

“The iconic moments Paul Henderson gave us are part of Canadian history,” Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister, tweeted in 2019. “It’s time to enshrine him in the Hockey Hall of Fame, and let his legacy be forever etched among the greats.”

The reason he’s not etched among the greats, of course, seems simple enough. Even if the hall’s selection committee works in secret and doesn’t discuss the content of its deliberations, it’s safe to assume the knock against Henderson is straightforward: It’s that he made his name in one moment, scoring one goal — or, if you’re being fair, scoring seven goals in the eight-game series, including the winners in each of Games 6, 7 and 8.

The Hockey Hall of Fame seems to favour players with more robust career resumés. Henderson was a fine Maple Leaf. He led the team with a career-high 38 goals in 1971-72. He played more than 1,000 professional games when you combine his 12 years in the NHL with his five-year run in the WHA. But even Henderson is well aware that none of that reads like the text on a Hall of Fame plaque.

“So many Canadians get upset that I’m not in the Hall of Fame, and I tell them all the time if I was on the committee I wouldn’t vote for me,’’ Henderson has said. “This is the truth: There’s a lot…