Fan’s love for Jets carved in wood

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/03/2012 (5268 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg hockey fans who have cheered for the Golden Jet, the Little General, Ducky and the Finnish Flash, please put your hands together for the, um, Wooden Jet.

He’s not a player, actually, he’s an “it.” But one look at the handiwork of Wayne Capar and you might very well rise in unison in a standing “O.”

The Manitoba Highways employee is a woodcarver in his spare time and has built a full-sized replica of a Jets jersey out of — what else? — wood.

“The idea popped into my head after Christmas and I had to build it,” Capar said from his home near Hazelridge, about 20 minutes northeast of the Perimeter Highway. “I told people, ‘Hey, I’m going to build a Jets jersey’ and everyone looked at me kind of funny.”

Nearly 200 hours of labour and $800 of expenses later, his friends and family are still looking at him funny but only because their jaws are hitting the floor.

Eight different types of wood — walnut, aspen, mahogany, cedar, birch, maple, lace and cherry — have been called off the (work) bench and joined together to form an away jersey.

Capar used a benchtop scroll saw and some knives to carve out the intricate details — right down to the laces, logos and labels — and a whole lot of sanding to smooth things down.

But carving a hockey jersey out of wood isn’t as straightforward as sitting down with a tree stump and a Swiss Army knife. Each element requires a separate piece of wood and different carving skill. When every piece was finally finished, he glued them together.

“The design was really tough. It hadn’t been done before. Where do you start? How do you figure out how to cut laces in wood?” he said.

Capar started off making the logo and finished with the tag on the bottom corner on the front.

“The first and last pieces are the toughest. Everything else is logistics and trial and error,” he said.

But it almost didn’t come to fruition. When the jersey initially wasn’t turning out the way he hoped, he almost abandoned the project.

“I tend to build some very expensive fires when I get too picky,” he said.

Capar confesses to being a huge hockey fan — surprise — and admits his heart was broken when the original team left for Phoenix 16 years ago. He still knows every player on that last squad and confesses he’s just getting to know the players on the city’s new team. (This explains why he didn’t do the back of the jersey — he doesn’t have a favourite player yet.)

In fact, he thinks the old team’s emblem might have been easier to carve.

“The jet on the new one is a mirror image. You have to be pretty perfect,” he said, noting while he hasn’t been to a game at the MTS Centre yet, the broadcasts are always on inside his workshop.

After building all kinds of things over the past 15 years, he started a company last year called Natural Knot Wood Designs, and has been doing a fairly brisk business selling Christmas decorations and wreaths.

Capar, who picked up his love of woodcarving from his father, hasn’t put his tools away yet, either. He said he’s considering doing a home jersey — using darker woods, of course — and he’d like to build a goalie, too.

“I may do (Chris) Mason because he has those really cool pads (with the Jets logo on them),” he said. “I’d like to do a partial hockey scene on ice, too.”

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca