Ben Dover
@Hallsy

Breaking ground in the top 60 players, we have one of the premier defensemen of the S30’s and 40’s, none other than Ben Dover. This was a player of a long-time user named ThatDamnMcJesus, who is still around today but known as Hallsy, the GM of the Hamilton Steelhawks. But when he was drafted to the Hawks in the S30 SHL Entry Draft at 13th overall, he was not the GM. Until a couple seasons later, that is. But that’s beside the point, we’re here to talk about the player not the GM. So who is Ben Dover and why is he on this list? His biggest claim to fame might be that he spent 17 seasons with Hamilton and DIDN’T win the Challenge Cup! ? When you look at the history of awards, he won’t show up there, either - he is one of the few players on this list without a major award to their name. But even without the individual accolades, he was a beauty of a player with a stretch of dominance unmatched by few others.

His first season was S31 - at this time Hamilton was going through a bit of a rebuild after being a great team in the S20’s with 2 cups and a finals appearance as recently as S29, but they finished dead last in S30. 31 wasn’t much better for the team, finishing last in their conference, with multiple rookies on the squad. Dover was the best of these rookies, notching an impressive 10 goals and 19 assists, along with 90 shot blocks. For his efforts, he was nominated for the Jesster trophy and named to the all-rookie all-star team. A promising start for the young player, and he continued to improve personally, getting 31 points in S32, then in S33 he cracked 40 points for the first time, including scoring an impressive 18 goals.This was good enough to lead the team in scoring, a rare feat for a defender. Although Hamilton continued to flounder out of the playoffs, Dover continued to put up decent numbers, adding another element to his game as his hits and shot blocks started rising as well. In S35 he had 44 points, 95 hits, and a career high 118 blocked shots - this earned him a nod as a 3rd team all-star, despite Hamilton once again finishing in last place.

S37 was Dover’s best season but also a bit controversial. He scored 24 goals and added 36 assists for 60 points - top 10 in goals, assists, and 3rd in the league for scoring. He also added 161 hits and 87 shot blocks. But yet he was not nominated for a Stevens award, because, as it turned out, he’d played games a forward. In the awards thread they stated "After discussion with Eggy during the initial voting process, it was determined to not consider Dover a defenseman this season due to the in-season move to forward on Hamilton's lines." So with that, Dover just received a 2nd All Star Team instead, and no award nominations due to be split between forward and defense that season. That offseason they also ruled you cannot play out of position as well because the punishment in STHS was not great enough. Ending the stop to that.

In S38 Dover’s team made the playoffs for the first time in his career, after another great season by him, with 40 assists he was 4th in the league. His two-way play was evident for the next stretch of seasons, consistently scoring 10+ goals, 40+ points, 100+ hits, and 100+ shots. Unfortunately for the Hawks they were not able to win a Cup but they were a very good team for a stretch. Dover’s last big season was S46, the last time he got 40+ points and was again named to the 3rd all-star team. He played 2 more seasons but his production dropped significantly, and he retired after S48.

When all was said and done, his career totals were 700 points in just 893 games played.Those 700 points are still good for 5th all time in defensive scoring, even in the inflation era nobody is coming close to knocking him out of the top 5. Nobody else in the top 10 of defensive scoring did it in less than 1000 games. He is 2nd in all-time goals by a defenseman, just 1 shy of Garbanzo despite playing 300 fewer games.  He was a model of consistency over time - he didn’t just have one or two good seasons and fade away. He had 10/12 seasons scoring 10+ goals, 8 straight seasons with over 40 points, 12 straight seasons with over 100 shots, very rarely falling out of the leaderboards in that stretch. Looking back it is surprising he did not get more individual awards, with just 1 nomination in his career and 4 all-star nods. But there is no mistaking that he was a great player and that is why he has earned his spot in the top 75 of all time.

Written by @Muerto