Wow, there's a lot of unpack (read: completely disagree with) here:
Those first two things are not at all true. There is an Ali type element to Richard though where he is more folk hero than player, or at least had been at times, and a lot of stuff with both gets glossed over or exaggerated for effect.
Okay, it's perhaps a minor point (I do get what you're comparing here), but Ali and Richard are not fair comparisons. Ali defied the orders of the US government and suffered the loss of respect from millions and half a decade of his career, as a result. Richard stood up (at basically no personal risk to himself) to Clarence Campbell on a few occasions, but he was hardly risking a jail sentence or the loss of his career.
Richard is not "more folk hero than player" than anybody else of his era. If younger people today know him more as a folk hero, it's because HE PLAYED IN THE 1940s.There's no video of his young, peak years, and not much more of his latter half. Is Eddie Shore more player than folk hero, while Richard isn't? Anybody who played before the 1970s is basically a 'folk' hero now.
Rocket Richard was one of the great players of all time, and that's his legacy.
Anyway, in general it is going to be players who had great numbers but did little else who rise, and players who did things that don't show up on the scoresheet who fall. Memories fade while numbers stay the same, and people are not interested in watching old games.
So, you're saying stats are what matters and we can just ignore contemporary accounts -- those who actually watched the games?
Esposito always comes up and is overrated in these threads for the same reason. There are exceptions though.
I would argue that Esposito is
underrated in these threads. (I'm not sure about the wider hockey world.)
Richard and Sawchuk are the most historically significant ones that come to mind for me. Richard was viewed as a legitimate rival to Howe for several decades, and Sawchuk was regarded as the consensus answer for best goaltender in history. Neither of those things is considered now. I think that most of us can grasp the reasons.
Yes, recency bias.
Richard's legacy goes beyond hockey and is impacted by the way he acted as a symbol for millions of people, while Sawchuk had numbers that dwarfed those of his biggest competition plus a very highly regarded peak.
Richard was generally considered the greatest player of his era (with some recent rivalry from Howe) by the early/mid-1950s, long
before the Richard Riot occurred. Yes, Richard was idolized by (a fairly small population of) French Canadians in the 1940s and early 1950s from games on the radio and watching games at the Forum, but he was idolized because he was the greatest scorer. Just like Howie Morenz (English Canadian) was idolized.
Memories of Richard's cultural significance and Sawchuk's peak are pretty faded, and their records are long gone.
How is this different from any other player of the era? Does anyone today (under 80) remember Charlie Conacher's game or Gordie Howe's in the early 1950s?
Playoff heroics are also not going to play as well in the distant future because people mainly look at regular season stats and playoff statistics are much more context dependent than those from the regular season.
Umm... no. We have threads going on right now in this forum saying that Claude Lemieux should have been on any 1990 'Four Nations' roster purely due to his playoff heroics.
Can you explain how playoff statistics are more "context dependent" than regular season?
Public opinion on Lemieux significantly improved after his first retirement by the time he came back.
Again, I didn't perceive it this way at all, at the time. Lemieux from around 1992 to 1997 was the most beloved and universally admired player in the game, by far. He could do no wrong, in public or media perception, in this period.
Jagr also had a significant improvement to his image during the latter stages of his career as people forgot about sullen Jagr and enjoyed goofy old man Jagr.
Sort of agree, except "sullen" isn't how most people perceived young Jagr...
Mogilny has come up and he is strangely overrated on here recently.
Yep.
Old player without a gimmick to hang their hat on are inevitably going to see their status fall
Can you give an example of an "old player" who is rated (too) high because of a gimmick?
