It’s Hughes vs. Hawerchuk for local sports supremacy By: Taylor Allen Posted:

After four rounds, 30 matchups and nearly 15,000 votes, it's time for the Final Showdown.

Read this article for free:


or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Subscribe and receive a limited-edition Free Press branded hat or tote.

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $205*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/06/2020 (2262 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After four rounds, 30 matchups and nearly 15,000 votes, it’s time for the Final Showdown.

We began May 21 with 32 athletes but there’s just two left standing: speedskater/cyclist Clara Hughes and Winnipeg Jets legend Dale Hawerchuk. And if you had told me at the beginning they’d be the last two left, I would not have been surprised.

How it works

To vote, visit Sports Showdown.

Voting begins every Friday at noon, and remains open until the following Thursday at noon. You can vote on each match once per day.

The Final Showdown pairings are available for voting now; vote daily until noon on June 18, when we’ll declare Manitoba’s greatest athlete of all time.

The argument for Hughes — the only athlete in the world to win multiple medals at both Summer and Winter Games — is a strong one. With six overall medals, she’s tied with fellow Winnipegger Cindy Klassen for the title of Canada’s all-time most-decorated Olympian.

Hughes dominated Sports Showdown from the start, defeating cyclist Tanya Dubnicoff by 350 votes in the opening round. She went on to have another convincing victory in her following matchup, defeating soccer star Desiree Scott in the Super 16.

Canadian Olympic speedskater and cyclist Clara Hughes is the only athlete in the world to win multiple medals at both summer and winter games. (Stefano Rellandini / Pool files)
Canadian Olympic speedskater and cyclist Clara Hughes is the only athlete in the world to win multiple medals at both summer and winter games. (Stefano Rellandini / Pool files)

Her toughest week came in the Excellent 8, where she squared off against Paralympic swimmer Tim McIsaac, who had a wealth of supporters backing him. Hughes trailed for the majority of the week, but grabbed the lead on the final night of voting and ended up with a 422-404 win.

In the Fantastic 4, Hughes went up against Jonathan Toews, a player who’s won essentially everything there is to possibly win in hockey. But a Sports Showdown championship wasn’t in the cards for the Chicago Blackhawks captain, as Hughes skated away with 44 more votes.

This town sure loves Hawerchuk. The NHL Jets 1.0 all-time scoring leader (713G, 550A in 713 games) didn’t have an easy road to the final, by any means. He took down the current captain of the Jets, Blake Wheeler, in Round 1, cruising to a 374-129 win. Hawerchuk then faced Bobby Hull, taking down The Golden Jet by 270 votes.

Dale Hawerchuk is the NHL Jets 1.0 all-time scoring leader (713G, 550A in 713 games). (Ken Gigliotti / Winnipeg Free Press files)
Dale Hawerchuk is the NHL Jets 1.0 all-time scoring leader (713G, 550A in 713 games). (Ken Gigliotti / Winnipeg Free Press files)

Then came Hawerchuk’s most intriguing matchup: Teemu Selanne. No, Selanne wasn’t a Jet for long, but his sensational rookie season in 1992-93 is still talked about to this day. Selanne steamrolled his previous opponents, but Hawerchuk put an end to the Finnish Flash’s hopes by a count of 248-177.

Hawerchuk got through all the Jets, but to earn a meeting with Hughes he needed to outlast Milt Stegall, a guy who has a street named after him. The ever-so-popular Stegall, who beat Chris Walby in the Blue Bombers final, put up a solid fight but fell to Hawerchuk by just 13 votes.

So, that’s how Hughes and Hawerchuk got here. Who deserves to be crowned the face of Manitoba sports? Hughes is a Winnipegger and that could give her an advantage in the final, but it’s tough to ignore the fact that this city is obsessed with hockey.

Whether you were fully engaged or apathetic, voted once or 100 times, I appreciate those who took part in Sports Showdown. Hopefully, the next time we do something like this we can argue over it while watching live sports.

Click to vote for Manitoba’s greatest athlete

Click to vote for Manitoba's greatest athlete

 

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @TaylorAllen31

Taylor Allen

Taylor Allen
Reporter

Taylor Allen is a sports reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. Taylor was the Vince Leah intern in the Free Press newsroom twice while earning his joint communications degree/diploma at the University of Winnipeg and Red River College Polytechnic. He signed on full-time in 2019 and mainly covers the Blue Bombers, curling, and basketball. Read more about Taylor.

Every piece of reporting Taylor produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.

Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.

Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.

Related Articles

Paralympic swimming legend had strong support in top athlete bracket
Over his career, Tim McIsaac collected 14 gold, four silver and five bronze Paralympic medals. He also dominated the World Games, racing to five gold medals, four silver and eight bronze between from 1979-86.
Report Error Submit a Tip

More Stories

Prime Minister Mark Carney is silhouetted as he gives a statement after touring Global Container Terminals' Deltaport facility, at Roberts Bank in Delta, B.C., on Thursday, July 30, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

‘We got attacked’: Carney says retaliatory tariffs on U.S. to take effect next month

Catherine Morrison and David Baxter, The Canadian Press 8 minute read Preview

‘We got attacked’: Carney says retaliatory tariffs on U.S. to take effect next month

Catherine Morrison and David Baxter, The Canadian Press 8 minute read Updated: 1:17 PM CDT

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Mark Carney says retaliatory tariffs will hit the U.S. starting next month after Canada walked away from what he called a "bad deal."

The U.S. introduced new 50 per cent tariffs on billions of dollars in Canadian exports on Saturday after trade talks failed. 

"We got attacked," Carney told reporters on Parliament Hill Saturday when asked about the escalating trade war. 

Carney suspended talks with the United States late Friday and summoned his negotiators back to Ottawa.

Read
Updated: 1:17 PM CDT

Ready to crack over late-night ‘snacks’

Maureen Scurfield 4 minute read Yesterday at 2:00 AM CDT

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My new love has a seriously annoying habit that could break us up now that we’re actually living together.

I’m not getting much sleep, and it has nothing to do with having too much sex! Every night at about 2 a.m., my man gets up and goes to the fridge, makes a giant sandwich and pours a huge glass of apple juice, then sits there scarfing it down, with music on for a bit of entertainment. This often wakes me up, and when I complain he just invites me to join him “for a bite.”

Really? The last thing I need is to eat a fourth meal of the day in the middle of the night. He says it’s an old habit from his football days, when he was so hungry all the time and he still enjoys it. He says he isn’t about to change that for me, so, tough luck.

It’s a big problem as I can’t just fall back to sleep after he rattles around the kitchen and then comes back and jumps back into bed with me.

Choose Manitoba's greatest athlete.

It’s Hughes vs. Hawerchuk for local sports supremacy

Taylor Allen 4 minute read Preview

It’s Hughes vs. Hawerchuk for local sports supremacy

Taylor Allen 4 minute read Friday, Jun. 12, 2020

After four rounds, 30 matchups and nearly 15,000 votes, it's time for the Final Showdown.

We began May 21 with 32 athletes but there's just two left standing: speedskater/cyclist Clara Hughes and Winnipeg Jets legend Dale Hawerchuk. And if you had told me at the beginning they'd be the last two left, I would not have been surprised.

The argument for Hughes — the only athlete in the world to win multiple medals at both Summer and Winter Games — is a strong one. With six overall medals, she's tied with fellow Winnipegger Cindy Klassen for the title of Canada's all-time most-decorated Olympian.

Hughes dominated Sports Showdown from the start, defeating cyclist Tanya Dubnicoff by 350 votes in the opening round. She went on to have another convincing victory in her following matchup, defeating soccer star Desiree Scott in the Super 16.

Read
Friday, Jun. 12, 2020
Ethan Cairns / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pauses as he delivers a speech at Cascadia Metals in Delta, B.C., on Aug. 14.

The trolls inside the Conservative tent

David McLaughlin 5 minute read Preview

The trolls inside the Conservative tent

David McLaughlin 5 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

The Conservative Party of Canada has a troll problem. And it’s coming from inside the tent.

Once, trolls existed only in imagination. They were figures of mythical proportion, big and small. They lived solitary lives under bridges, in caves, or forests. They were considered dim-witted and mean. Best avoided.

Today, they are real, unavoidable, and ubiquitous on social media. They are anything but solitary. There are tribes of them out there and tribal is how they think and post. As for dim-witted and mean, others can opine but they are uniformly mean and dismissive.

Mean to anyone who disagrees with their views. Dismissive of any view but their own. They distribute questionable, at best, facts and opinions grounded in hostility towards anything or anyone deemed disagreeable or heretical to their world view.

Read
2:00 AM CDT
Condition critical

ER wait times have hit all-time highs in Winnipeg and are impacting nearly all aspects of hospital operations

Tom Brodbeck 17 minute read Preview

ER wait times have hit all-time highs in Winnipeg and are impacting nearly all aspects of hospital operations

Tom Brodbeck 17 minute read Yesterday at 6:00 AM CDT

On most days at Health Sciences Centre’s adult emergency department, all 58 treatment beds are filled with sick patients. Another dozen or so brought in by ambulance line the hallways on stretchers, with only one nurse to look after them.

Out in the waiting room, about 30 or 40 people — sometimes more — are slouched in chairs in pain or discomfort, waiting hours to see a doctor. Most have been assessed by a triage nurse, but many will have to wait 10 to 20 hours to be examined by a physician because there’s no room for them in the treatment area.

Some patients leave because they can no longer tolerate the excruciating wait, only to return days later, sicker than they were before.

Welcome to the emergency department at Manitoba’s largest hospital, where some of the highest-acuity patients seek medical care but now face delays that were unimaginable a few years ago.

Read
Yesterday at 6:00 AM CDT
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Stephen Giesbrecht shows where the base of a new community mailbox was burned, before the box was even installed.

Residents fear mailbox crime sprees

Morgan Modjeski 4 minute read Preview

Residents fear mailbox crime sprees

Morgan Modjeski 4 minute read 2:01 AM CDT

Some North End residents are concerned new community mailboxes will become a target for vandalism and crime after the base of one was recently lit ablaze — before it was even installed.

The community mailboxes started to show up on Andrews Street within the last two weeks. Some have been installed, while at other locations, only the concrete foundation is in place.

“They just dumped them on the boulevard,” said Stephen Giesbrecht, who lives beside one of the boxes in the St. John’s neighbourhood. “They dumped them on the corner and then they were gone.”

One of the concrete slabs has already played host to a fire and some of the hardware needed to install the mailbox melted.

Read
2:01 AM CDT