Dale Hawerchuck, the greatest Jet ever, is finally being inducted into the Winnipeg Jets Hall of Fame.
Now, to be fair to True North, they only started this honour last season to show appreciation for the history of hockey in Winnipeg (the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame already honoured past teams such as the first Olympic gold medal-winning Winnipeg Falcons, multiple Memorial Cup champion-Winnipeg Braves and Monarchs and of course, the Stanley Cup winning teams of the Winnipeg Victorias along with Winnipeg Arena's original tenant in 1955-the Winnipeg Warriors)
The Winnipeg Jets 1.0 owned by Barry Shenkarow from 1979-1996 should have had Hawerchuck's number 10 hanging from the rosters much, much earlier. Hawerchuck is the all-time leading Winnipeg Jets scoring leader with 379 goals, 550 assists for 929 points in 713 games played.It's a real historical shame that not only did Winnipeg Jets fans lose their team in 1996, but it never got to see one of (if not the) greatest player to wear a Jets uniform honoured in front of them like he should have been.
Standing alone wearing his Winnipeg Jets jersey in the middle of the ice in Jobing.com Arena (now Gila River Arena) being honoured by (at the time) the Phoenix Coyotes, to their credit, was just ridiculous for Jets fans. Then to have his name and number raised to the rafters in Coyotes colours, along with other Jets that never played a single, solitary game in Phoenix. That includes Bobby Hull and Thomas Steen, who never played for any other organization other than the Winnipeg Jets. By that logic, I'm surprised the Coyotes don't claim Teemu Selanne as one of their own. I mean, why not throw his number 13 up there as well?
This goes along with my theory on letting the Jets have their history back. Things like this wouldn't happen. So, so stupid.
But Dale "Ducky" Hawerchuck will finally be having his name and number hanging from the rafters at Bell MTS Place along with Bobby Hull, Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nillsson.
I'm actually surprised Hawerchuck is being inducted by himself (there might be others added to this class before the season starts) because I fully expected Thomas Steen and Teemu Selanne to be standing at center ice with him.
Congratulations Ducky! It's about time.
