For so many Vancouver Canucks fans, it's the wound that will not heal.

Although more than 19 years have passed, the Cam Neely trade to the Boston Bruins in the spring of 1986 remains one of the darkest days in franchise history. And even though Neely's playing days are long over, the sting of that lopsided deal returns every time his name surfaces, as it did last week when he was selected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

But those Canucks fans still haunted by the worst trade the team has ever made have to realize that as great as Neely became in his far-too-short National Hockey League career, he was never going to be the player he turned out to be here in Vancouver.

Certain players are destined to play for certain teams, and although Cam Neely came into this world in the Comox Valley, and was raised in Maple Ridge and drafted by Vancouver, he was born to be a Boston Bruin.

So it doesn't do anyone any good to play the "what if" game. Oh, sure, Neely showed glimpses in the three seasons he played for the Canucks of why the team had selected him ninth overall out of Portland in the 1983 draft. In the 201 regular-season games he suited up for the Canucks, he scored 51 goals and picked up 104 points-decent numbers for a guy still getting his feet wet in the NHL. And based on those first few years, Neely might have developed into a pretty good player had he remained with the Canucks. But the Canucks didn't have the talent the Bruins possessed to surround him, and he wasn't getting the chances here that he would there.

And although it may not have made much sense to Canuck fans or to Neely himself on his 21st birthday, the trade that sent him from Vancouver to Boston also sent him on his way to hockey's Hall, where he'll be inducted on November 7.

"I can't quite fathom yet what this means," Neely told the media in Boston after his selection. "Being in the Hall with all the other great players is quite an honour. Everything I have today is from the game of hockey.

"Obviously, when you play a team game, the ultimate thing to do is to win a championship. It was disappointing that we got close twice and didn't quite get there," he said. "Having the number [8] retired by the Bruins last year was something I never dreamt of having. This falls in that category, as well."

The old Boston Garden was made for a player like Neely, with smaller- than-standard dimensions that allowed forecheckers to pummel defencemen on the end boards and gave wingers with big shots a chance to score from just about anywhere. Neely owes much of his success to the designers of that old rink in Beantown, because his talents were perfectly suited to its size.

And it certainly didn't hurt that in his first year in Boston, Neely had Terry O'Reilly as his coach. The fans in Boston loved O'Reilly because he could score and he could fight. They came to love Neely more than his coach because he did everything O'Reilly did-only Neely did it better.

"Cam Neely was the hockey player other hockey players wanted to be," Bruins president Harry Sinden said of the player he acquired when he was still the team's general manager in 1986. "He was blessed with a rare blend of talent, strength, and determination and inspired other players to play as he did: hard and unrelenting."

Neely's numbers in Boston are remarkable. He scored 55 goals in 1989-90 and followed that up with a 51-goal season a year later. Despite missing most of the next two years with knee, hip, and thigh injuries, he returned in 1993-94 and hit the magical 50-goal mark in just 44 games. His on-ice performance and his triumphant return from the injuries that were already threatening to cut his career short earned him the Bill Masterton Trophy, awarded annually by hockey writers to the player who best demonstrates perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to the game of hockey.

All of those traits described Neely, who, on one good leg, had returned to dominate the game.

"He was the complete player. I don't think we see a player like that [today] because that was him, and that's why he's in the Hall now," Mike O'Connell, the Bruins' current GM, said of Neely earning hockey's highest honour. "He skated. He hit. He scored. He fought. He stuck up for his teammates. That's three or four players right there-and he did it all in one."

One of the things that adds to the Neely legacy was his penchant for performing when it counted most. Although the Bruins didn't win the Stanley Cup during his time in Boston, Neely certainly gave all he had to make it happen.

With 55 playoff goals, he remains first in the long and storied history of a franchise that has seen the likes of Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Johnny Bucyk, and Ray Bourque wear the black and gold.

Neely's final season in the NHL was 1995-96, when he scored 26 goals in 49 games, but the pain of all his injuries just wouldn't let him continue. At the age of 30, the best power forward the game has ever seen, arguably, was forced to call it a career.

Don Cherry once suggested that if you had to take a player to Mars to show the Martians how hockey was to be played, Cam Neely would be the guy you'd take. Certainly, no one could argue that most nights he was out of this world.

That's why even though others had better numbers and more championships than Neely, his selection to the Hockey Hall of Fame is the right one. He revolutionized his position; he came to play every night and gave it everything he had.

"I'm certainly honoured that the selection committee looked not just at points and production but maybe at what kind of impact I had on the game," Neely said.

And it's pretty clear that Cam Neely has had a significant impact on hockey fans in Vancouver, who have to be happy he's going into the Hall. They just wish it could have happened for him as a member of the Canucks.

Jeff Paterson hosts Sportstalk Weekend on Saturdays and Sundays, 9 p.m. to midnight, on CKNW. E-mail him at jpaterson@cknw.com.