By Paul Osborne, "From the Stands" The Guelph Tribune - The Guelph Storm wanted to select the top 20 Guelph Storm players in franchise history as part of their 20th anniversary celebrations.

That might seem like a pretty easy thing to do on the surface. A committee made up of eight people who have been very close to the team over the years met to whittle down the final 40 players as selected by fans to the final 20.

We picked the goaltenders first and that garnered pretty quick consensus, a theme that would not last the night. Chris Madden, he of the Memorial Cup MVP trophy, wasn’t a unanimous selection but was on seven of eight ballots so he was in.

Then it came down to Adam Dennis, Craig Anderson and Thomas McCollum. Some felt Dennis should get the nod because he led the team to an OHL Championship. Anderson was once selected OHL Goaltender of the Year and was a Storm MVP, but his Achilles heel was the fact he never won a playoff game.

In the end, it was McCollum nailing down the second spot based on his career goals against average of 2.39 and .918 save percentage. He also had more career wins than Anderson and Dennis. The fact he played in a World Junior Championship didn’t hurt.

If you were to pick your “gimmies” among the forwards, how many do you think you could name before you met some opposition? I figured we’d probably agree on the top eight unanimously . . . not even close.

I got through Todd Bertuzzi, Ryan Callahan and Jeff O’Neill, who everyone agreed should be on the list. Next I had Dustin Brown but one person didn’t think he belonged in the top 12. We did all agree that Marty St. Pierre and Daniel Paille should be on the squad but after that it was a free-for-all.

Jeff Bes, with an incredible 217 points in just 121 games, made the grade after some debate, so did Sylvain Cloutier with his large heart and 237 points and 279 minutes in penalties. (A side conversation reminisced about the fight Sylvain had against his netminding brother Danny, who was tending goal for Sault Ste. Marie at the time. Sylvain came out of the Zamboni entrance after being taunted by his brother and they went at as only two brothers can).

There was a lot of debate over Brian Willsie. But his 28 playoff goals were proof of the fact he always came up big in the post-season, steaming in off the right wing.

Then it came down to a group consisting of Matt D’Agostini, Manny Malhotra, Jamie Wright, Todd Norman, Dwayne Hay, Jason Jackman and Taylor Beck. If you project Beck’s numbers over the next year, he definitely belongs in the top group but he’ll have to wait for the 25th anniversary. D’Agostini and Hay were the next two players to be dropped off the ballot while Wright stayed alive for his all-round play.

So that left Jackman, Malhotra and Norman. Norman, with 255 career points, sits in the top five in many franchise categories but some felt he was a much better regular season player than a playoff performer.

Malhotra was only here two years before the New York Rangers ruined the kid’s career by taking him to the NHL as an 18-year-old. But he was great in the playoffs, getting his share of points and often lining up against the other team’s top centre. And “Jacker” was almost a point-a-game guy, dependable defensively and well liked by everyone.

On defense Drew Doughty and Ryan Parent were unanimous selections but, believe it or not, someone didn’t have Kevin Dallman (the all-time franchise leader in points for defense-men with 260) in his top six, but he made everyone else’s list. Kevin Mitchell and his 211 points in 201 games was the next on the team followed by defensive stalwart Chris Hajt.

That led to a huge debate over two-time captain Regan Stocco, Fedor Tyutin and Daniel Girardi. One side argued for Tyutin and the other for Stocco. Not that everyone felt that Girardi should be in, it just seemed that Stocco and Tyutin became the lightning rods for discussion. Tyutin only played one season in Guelph and half felt that should exclude him, but the other felt he was so dominant when he was here that he had to be included. Stocco, admired by every voter for his leadership abilities, lacked the tremendous skill of Tyutin. It wasn’t until the next day after voting again were the last two forward spots and the final defensive spot filled. The list appears on the lower left part of this page.

The committee was made up of former owner Jim Rooney, long time trainer Rusty Hammond, radio play-by-play man Larry Mellott, Bill Granger from Rogers Cable 20, Rob Massey and Tony Saxon of the Guelph Mercury, former Merc scribe Dave Pollard and myself.