The day Ducky was no longer ‘Mr. Winnipeg Jet’

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/10/2020 (1782 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dale Hawerchuk, arguably the greatest all-time member of the Winnipeg Jets, was the centrepiece of the team throughout the 1980s. He reconnected with fans after the new Jets relocated to town in 2011 and the relationship grew stronger in the ensuing years.

There was an outpouring of support for him after he announced last fall that he was battling cancer and there were high hopes for his future when a picture circulated of him in April ringing the bell to signify he had completed his last chemotherapy treatment. But the disease returned in July and he lost his battle in August. Author Geoff Kirbyson spoke at length with Hawerchuk two years ago about his time with the Jets. Newly released Broken Ribs & Popcorn is dedicated to him.

 

Dale Hawerchuk always thought he’d retire as a member of the Winnipeg Jets.

Then John Ferguson got fired as the team’s general manager in October 1988, was replaced by Mike Smith, and all bets were off.

The Jets star centre knew Smith didn’t like him dating back to his rookie season in 1981-82 when he and teammate Scott Arniel were talking to the then-scout about the team’s prospects.

“Scotty and I were saying the team would be pretty good that first year but Smith said it wouldn’t be too far from the bottom. Who wants a guy like that around in your organization?” he said.

Smith also confided to Hawerchuk that if it had been up to him at the draft table in 1981, he would have used the first overall pick to select Bobby Carpenter instead.

“Who tells an 18-year-old this kind of stuff? I thought ‘geez, who is this guy?’” Hawerchuk said.

The Jets’ all-time leading scorer told owner Barry Shenkarow he’d try it under Smith for one full year, the 1989-90 season, but if he wanted out after that, the team would have to trade him.

“At some point, you say, ‘do I want to go through a wall for this guy like I would for John Ferguson?’ It was time to move on, which I thought would never happen.”

After the disappointment of the 1990 playoffs — the Jets were eliminated by the Oilers once again, blowing a 3-1 series lead — Hawerchuk dropped by Shenkarow’s house. Soon after sitting down in his living room, he dropped the bombshell.

“I want to be traded.”

Shenkarow’s heart sank.

“What do you mean you want to be traded? You are the Winnipeg Jets. You are Mr. Winnipeg Jet,” Shenkarow sputtered.

The Jets’ owners had always let their hockey people run the hockey operations so Shenkarow had no idea about the depth of animosity between the general manager and his captain. (Sorry, co-captain. Coach Bob Murdoch had decided to rotate the “C” that season along with Thomas Steen and Randy Carlyle. The trio were nicknamed “the Velcro leaders” because of all of the letter swapping.)

An obvious slight to Hawerchuk, who had been captain since 1984-85, he took it all in stride.

“Bob (Murdoch) wanted to alternate the captains. I was fine with that, if that’s the way you want to do it. Bob talked to me a lot. He always wanted the team to believe they could win without me, if I was injured or something,” he said.

To put that belief to the ultimate test, Murdoch went so far as to scratch Hawerchuk from the lineup for a game in Los Angeles.

“I was kind of pissed about that. I went golfing with a couple of the guys who weren’t playing that night. We came back to watch the game and we got pumped (by the Kings) pretty good. It didn’t work out too well,” he said.

Shenkarow told Hawerchuk if he was that adamant, he would talk to Smith.

“You can talk to Mike but if he’s here, I’m not here,” Hawerchuk replied.

“That was the end,” Shenkarow said.

In fact, the owner believed Hawerchuk’s desire to leave would have far more dire consequences.

“The whole thing was coming to an end. I knew it. The Jets didn’t leave (Winnipeg for Phoenix) on five minutes’ notice. It was five years in the making. We talked about it publicly for five years. The team isn’t going to be here. I knew it, he (Hawerchuk) knew it. There was no receptiveness (by civic and business leaders) to get something done,” he said.

“It was always, ‘we’ll have a study, we’ll have a study, we’ll have a study.’”

Hawerchuk never wanted to get involved in off-ice politics.

“I think everybody thought Mike was weird, right?” Hawerchuk said. “We didn’t know what Mike was up to. You could go have a meeting with Mike about something and you walk out of the meeting and say, ‘we didn’t talk about that. What did we talk about?’”

“I just wanted to play hockey.”

One player Hawerchuk confided in about his situation was Arniel, his old junior teammate and Winnipeg roommate, who had been playing for Buffalo since 1986. One day, Arniel’s coach, Rick Dudley, and general manager, Gerry Meehan, pulled him aside after he got off the team bus and asked if they could talk to him.

“I’m like, ‘uh, oh,’” Arniel said.

“Tell us about Dale Hawerchuk,” they said.

Relieved that he hadn’t just been traded, he replied “what do you need to know?”

“There’s a lot talk about him with things changing in Winnipeg,” Dudley said.

“He’s an elite player,” Arniel told them. “It’s a no-brainer. He’s one of those guys who will put you over the top.”

While he expected to get calls from 15 NHL general managers about Hawerchuk, Smith said only the Sabres and St. Louis Blues showed any real interest. The Blues offered forwards Sergio Momesso and Peter Zezel, which Smith dismissed because they were both mid-level players. Meehan, meanwhile, dangled defenseman Phil Housley in front of Smith and suddenly he was interested.

On June 16, exactly two months after the Jets were sent packing by the Oilers, Hawerchuk was shipped off to Buffalo along with a first-round draft pick, who turned out to be Brad May, in exchange for Housley, Arniel, Jeff Parker and a first-round pick in 1990 that would see Keith Tkachuk come to Winnipeg.

Arniel and Hawerchuk had been looking forward to being teammates again but Arniel said Smith didn’t want to give them the satisfaction.

“Dale was adamant that was Mike Smith. He knew how tight we were. He said Mike pushed hard that I had to be in that trade. It was too bad. It would have been great to play with Dale in Buffalo,” he said.

Hawerchuk was pleased that the Jets kept their word.

“My wife (Crystal) is from Manitoba. We ended up building a cabin in Gimli. Once you’re in hockey, you’re so busy anyway. It wasn’t like I was leaving Manitoba forever,” he said.