Long-time New York Rangers broadcaster Sal Messina and Los Angeles Times columnist Helene Elliott will have their plaques hang in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Messina will receive the 2005 Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for his work as an NHL broadcaster and that Elliott will receive the  2005 Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award for distinguished hockey writing.

The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim would like to congratulate Helene Elliott of the Los Angeles Times on her achievement of being the recipient of the 2005 Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award for distinguished hockey writing.

Hockey to Induct Elliott Into Hall
In ceremony tonight, The Times sportswriter will be the first female journalist to receive the honor.

By Dennis D'Agostino, Special to The Times

Helene tends to downplay her role as one of the pioneer female journalists in American sports. But make no mistake, when she and her sisters were starting out in the late 1970s, many locker room doors and press boxes were still closed except by court order.

In a 1978 interview in People magazine (from which she was bumped from the cover in favor of Lenny and Squiggy), she said, "Women have enough constraints without being made to stand outside for two hours before we can see the players." But she added, "Imagine getting paid to do all the things my parents yelled at me not to do." So as far as her legacy as a trailblazer, let's just say that my wife has done a lot of things simply because people told her she couldn't. (I hope marrying me wasn't one of them.)

It was a nice article that her husband wrote in the Times yesterday.