Dale Hawerchuk looks to Heritage Classic to avenge 1990 loss to Oilers

Dale Hawerchuk knows it's time for payback, time to shove a 26-year-old monkey from his back.

The former Jets superstar, now 53, will pull on a Winnipeg jersey this Saturday for the NHL's Heritage Classic alumni game outside at Investors Group Field. Hawerchuk will captain a squad of Jets legends who will face off against a superstar roster of Edmonton Oilers alumni.

"The fact that we could get all those former players back here for a weekend, it'll be a great reunion. And I know the fans will love to see some old faces," said the man known through his career as Ducky (a nickname imparted by an older player in junior hockey who thought Hawerchuk sounded like Howard the Duck).

"We're all a little older and a little heavier, but we still love the game. And playing outdoors is going to be a lot of fun, something we've never done."

While fun is the main goal, there is also some unfinished business for the Jets. Back in 1990, Winnipeg and Edmonton met in a best-of-seven playoff series — the Smythe Division final. It was the year Jets defenceman Dave Ellett scored in double overtime of Game 4, putting the Jets up 3-1 in the series and igniting the city's fans.

But Edmonton stormed back, winning the next three games and ending the Jets' season. The Oilers went on to win the Stanley Cup that year — their fifth in seven seasons.

"That was disappointing. We were right there and we felt like we could win that series, but it just didn't work out," Hawerchuk said this week.

"We were right there with them. It was a heck of a battle."

Now it's payback time.

"I'm hearing word of that in Winnipeg here," Hawerchuk said. "We'll have to be sharp come Saturday."

Many of those same Oilers will be in the alumni game, including goalie Bill Ranford and defenceman Charlie Huddy, who is now an assistant coach with the Jets.

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And many of those players from the Oilers' glory days are now in the Hockey Hall of Fame, as is Hawerchuk, whose storied career began when he was chosen first overall by the Jets in the 1981 NHL entry draft.

That year, at age 19, he became the youngest NHL player in history to reach 100 points (a record broken by Sidney Crosby in 2006), finishing with 103. He won the Calder Memorial Trophy as the NHL's rookie of the year and was selected to the all-star game.

He had a career high 53 goals and 103 points in a single season in 1984-85. He was dealt to the Buffalo Sabres in 1990 and when he retired in 1997, Hawerchuk was 18th on the NHL career points list with 518 goals and 891 assists.

The Jets franchise later relocated to Phoenix where, during the 2006-07 season, Hawerchuk was honoured by the Coyotes and his No. 10 was retired.

Hawerchuk hasn't stopped giving back to the Jets. As head coach of the Barrie Colts of the Ontario Hockey League, Hawerchuk coached Mark Scheifele and nudged the Jets to draft him.

Scheifele was ranked 21st heading into the draft but the new Jets took him as their first-ever pick, seventh overall, in 2011. They relied heavily on Hawerchuk's advice, which has since paid off as Scheifele has become one of the team's big stars.

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That sort of scouting insight is being relied upon again, as Hawerchuk was given the duty of forming the alumni team. He said he tried to get representatives from the Jets' pre-NHL days in the World Hockey Association as well as from the 1980s.

"It's not easy — there's a few guys who would like to get in, but there's only so many spots. We tried to do our best," he said.

"It wasn't like we just pulled names out of a hat."

He looked at the number of games someone played and their contribution to the team but also put a certain emphasis on another key measure: "Players where you just felt like, yeah, they were a real Winnipeg Jet," he said.

Unlike a number of the alumni who will be returning to the city for the first time in many years, Hawerchuk comes back "quite a bit" as his wife's family is from the Arborg area.

Still, every time he returns, he said, he drives around and sees familiar sights, things that have remained the same, and it "brings back a lot of memories."

While some things haven't changed, some certainly have. Long gone is Ducky's long coif.

During his playing days, Hawerchuk had a nice flow of hockey hair but that has since, well … flown.

"Those days are long gone," he said with a laugh. "I don't know if it's the coaching maybe that makes it disappear or just age. But those were fun times."