A member of San Jose’s inaugural NHL team, Arturs Irbe set the standard for being a Sharks player both on and off the ice.

In the 1993-94 season, he backstopped the Sharks to the biggest single-season turnaround in NHL history as they made the playoffs with 82 points — a 58-point increase from the previous year. That season, Irbe won 30 games and played a then-NHL record 4,412 minutes, en route to becoming the first Sharks goalie to be selected to play in the NHL All-Star Game. During the 1994 playoffs, Irbe led the Sharks to an unexpected first-round upset of top-seeded Detroit before pushing Toronto to seven games in the semifinals.

Irbe was one of the most popular players during the Sharks’ first decade, in large part due to his community work and selflessness. Irbe, who said he had to be “Like Wall” during that memorable 1993-94 season, is the first ice hockey player to be inducted into the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame, entering as part of the Class of 2010.