Dale Hawerchuk Statue on Full Display at Canada Life Centre

The greatest Winnipeg Jet to ever play the game will long be remembered in Manitoba’s capital city. And now, players, fans and members of Winnipeg’s front office staff will get a shiny bronze reminder of the legacy of Dale Hawerchuk, thanks to a brilliant statue pointing ‘true north’ just outside the doors of Canada Life Centre, unveiled on Saturday night.

“He always felt like Winnipeg was his home. Now he is home again, here in Winnipeg.” widow Crystal Hawerchuk said in her speech to the crowd gathered at True North Square prior to Winnipeg’s game against the Edmonton Oilers.

“Thank you to everyone involved in making this statue a reality. Thank you to the artist, Erik Blome, all the other artists,” Hawerchuk continued. “Thank you to the Jets organization, the city, the people of this wonderful province, all of the alumni, all of his fans and friends, teammates. As you remember Dale today, our family will always remember you.”

The colourful piece by Woodstock, Illinois’ Erik Blome of Figurative Art Studio is one of Blome’s many recognized designs. Jets’ president and executive chairman Mark Chipman made it clear that True North Sports + Entertainment wanted to hire the best figurative arts sculptor around, so it chose Blome, who has previously created the well-known Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky statues.

The #NHLJets have officially unveiled the honourary Dale Hawerchuk statue at @TrueNorthSquare – and what a beauty it is.

Long live the Winnipeg legend who left us far too soon.

Ducky had 379 goals and 929 points in 713 games as a member of the @NHLJets. pic.twitter.com/X3QhHVEKru

— Carter Brooks (@CBrooksie84) October 1, 2022

“When you’re preparing these things, the thought that just kept coming back is ‘I wish he was here.’ That’s the difficult part of this,” Chipman said. “I wish he had been able to be here and see all of the love that this community has for him.”

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The brand-new statue is of a Bruce Bennett image captured of Hawerchuk mid-stride, skating over centre ice with the puck on his stick. His signature is engraved into the base of the statue, which is actually made out of stone from a local Manitoban quarry shaped to represent the ice below his skates.

“I saw it in clay in the summertime and that blew me away,” Chipman said. “The amount of detail was really remarkable. We just went down to see it and it was like ‘wow.’ I had no idea what goes into creating something like this. Erik, we were really fortunate to get him. He’s a wonderful guy. To finally see it is really something. I said to him, ‘how are you going to get it up here?’ He said I’m going to drive it up on the back of a truck. I’m like, ‘you’ve got to be kidding me.’ So that’s what he did. I would have loved to be at the border when that came across (at customs). He did a wonderful job and I was really fortunate because when we were down there, they were actually starting to pour. It’s all assembled and built in individual pieces. That right-hand glove, they had just done the mould and they heated up the material that day, so I got a chance to actually help pour it in. That was really cool and I was very thankful for that.”

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Mark Scheifele joked about how Hawerchuk used to yell at him for his apparent lack of back-checking when he served as Scheifele’s junior coach with the Ontario Hockey League’s Barrie Colts. But the Jets’ current top centerman also reiterated how he will now have the opportunity to think back upon the many lessons Hawerchuk taught him as he sits at the nearby red light on his drive into work every morning.

“This statue, what a reminder it is for me, a guy who played for Dale. I drive down Hargrave every single day to the rink. So every day I get to just stop at this stop light and look at this statue and remember all of the lessons that he taught me. I get to remember all of the fun stories we had of winning games, losing games, all of the lessons. Him yelling at me for not backchecking, which now I know why. And now I get to look at this statue and think about him and think about that he’s up in heaven looking down on me. And I get to go to the rink and go with that love and that passion that he instilled in me when I was 17 years old and what an amazing honour. All I can say is ‘thank you Dale’.”

Alongside Hawerchuk and Scheifele, the ceremony also featured speeches from the NHL’s Sr. Vice President of Hockey Operations and former Winnipeg Jet Kris King, former Canada Cup teammate and fellow Hockey Hall of Fame member Paul Coffey, former Jets teammate Dave Ellett and former Jets teammate and current Jets Associate Coach Scott Arniel.

A number of former teammates and Jets alumni were also in attendance, who grouped together to remove the covering from the statue on cue. Special guests in attendance included: Randy Carlyle, Serge Savard, Dave Babych, Paul MacLean, Laurie Boschman, Lucien DeBlois, Jim Kyte, Tim Watters, Brian Mullen, Ray Neufeld, Jimmy Mann, Randy Gilhen and Jordy Douglas.

A couple more shots of Dale after dark: pic.twitter.com/FgBjnZ9Xld

— Carter Brooks (@CBrooksie84) October 2, 2022

Fans attending the game between Winnipeg and rival Edmonton received a special commemorative Dale Hawerchuk coin upon entrance to Canada Life Centre.

“That pride welled up in me in 1981. I’ll never forget it,” Chipman added. “I’ve never lost that sense of pride for our community and what this team means to it. No one epitomized that, or created that sense of pride, in my lifetime more than Dale.”