Dancing Gabe is a local sports legend

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/11/2019 (2131 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I have had the great luck to meet and interact with a local celebrity on many occasions, dating back a number of years now.

My son has zero recollection of meeting (and dancing with … hint, hint) this sports icon but, in my boy’s defence, he was only about four or five years old at the time. The meeting took place at BellMTS Place, then known as the MTS Centre, in about 2004 or 2005. We were attending a Manitoba Moose hockey game and a kind attendant allowed us to watch from what I believed at the time was a camera well but in retrospect was probably a seating space reserved for physically challenged patrons.

During one of the stoppages in play a figure very familiar to me entered our area and began to shimmy and shuffle… and, after a few seconds, my son joined him. I don’t remember the song, nor the duration but just the fact my son and this legendary figure were cuttin’ the rug was impressive.

If you haven’t guessed by now the legend is Gabriel (Dancing Gabe) Langlois, probably one of the most recognized sports figures ever to emerge from St. Vital.

You can’t watch highlights of Winnipeg sports teams without seeing at least one cameo from Gab, and I mean all sports teams — the Jets, the Bombers, the Goldeyes, the Moose, the Ice, Valour Football Club — Gabe gets around to just about every game.

Dancing Gabe is an alumni of Glenlawn Collegiate and is 56 years young. I have had the great pleasure of sharing not just a bus ride to and from Moose and Jets games with Gabe the past two seasons (I work for True North Sports + Entertainment) but also lots of talk, not surprisingly most of it sports related.  

On nearly any given night I can consult the “book of knowledge” that is Gabe’s mind regarding current standings, stats, and player info… not to mention a lot of historical data. Gabe has been dancing at sports games for 36 years. That is a lot of two-steppin’… not to mention cold nights, bus rides, and celebrities met over the years.  

A book about Gabe  — Dancing Gabe: One Step at a Time, by Daniel Perron — was published in 2015 and is a very interesting and insightful look into the life of this amazing icon of Winnipeg and Manitoba sports over the last three decades, give or take.  

I managed to get a picture of Gabe at the Oct. 25 Bomber game at IG Field and that in itself is an interesting story.

I am the bike valet supervisor and the bike valet area is located between Gates 3 and 4, just outside the field. I already had Gabe’s permission to get this article out there and told him I needed a pic.  

At the game, as we were getting ready to start securing bikes, someone tapped me and said, “Hey, there’s Dancing Gabe”, and sure enough, there he was, up on the concourse. The rest, as they say, is history… gotta get dancin’ on…

Weldon Rinn lives, writes, and enjoys living in St. Vital. He can be reached at weldonrinn2@gmail.com