By Kellah Lavoie

Hawerchuk talks hockey and sport in P.A.

May 14, 2011 | 7:23 AM

Dale Hawerchuk made a stop in Prince Albert, after what he called a whirlwind tour the last couple of months.

He was in the city to be the keynote speaker for the Sportsperson of the Year Awards banquet.

It comes after wrapping up the OHL season and coming back from Germany where he was on the coaching staff for the Under-18 World Hockey Championships – something he called a great experience with a disappointing finish.

One of the players on his team was Raider Mark McNeill, someone who Hawerchuk said has got a lot of skill.

“He’s a great kid, he’s obviously a very good hockey player and I would think that he’ll be an exciting player for the people of P.A. to watch, especially in the next year,” he said.

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“It might be his last (year), he probably has a chance to be a pro at 19, but if luck is on the side of P.A. they will have him for two more years.”

He said McNeill has a “big, big upside,” calling him a kid who loves the game and has skill and the eye of NHL scouts. McNeil is expected to be the first round pick in next month’s NHL draft.

The tournament was a lot of work, with a lot of time spent watching tape, Hawerchuk said.

“I can tell you one thing, it was sure as hell of a lot easier being a player than a coach, there’s a lot more hours away from the rink when you’re a coach.”

The key note speaker for the night also had some tidbits from his past to share with those in attendance.

He said parents need to be careful with how much they get involved with their children’s sports.

“The biggest thing my father did was he pushed me to play hard, praised me when I did well, let me know when I didn’t do well, didn’t question the coach and he decisions,” he said, explaining every team has different ways of doing things and the best players are those who can adapt.

Any athlete can play when the sun is shining on, but “when there is a rain storm (coaches) want to know who can play then and those are the players they want to go to war with,” he said.

He also shared some stories, and said when he was a Winnipeg Jet there were always lots of Saskatchewan fans who would come out and watch. It created a lot of memories for Hawerchuk.

When asked for one of his greatest hockey memories, he went back as far as he could.

“I started really young. When I was a two-year-old my father put me on the ice and I could really fly around and then I fell and hit my head and wouldn’t go back on the ice, and then he bought me a helmet and I went back in,” he said.

“When I was four I played on a hockey team and I only scored one goal that year, it was probably the only thing I remember from being four, it was a lucky goal, it was a fluky goal, but by the time I was five I thought I was a goal scorer.”

He said you never know what or when something is going to click with a kid, but hockey did with Hawerchuk when he small. The love of the sport never left him – in school almost every essay and report that could be, was about hockey or his idol when he was a child, Bobby Orr.

He said he was told he was not a great skater, but enough desire to play can give anybody a chance to make it big.

Hawerchuk played in the NHL for 17 seasons with four different teams. He retired in 1997 with a career total of 1407 points and was inducted into the hockey hall of fame in 2001.

At the time he was the youngest player ever to score 100 points in a season.

This year’s award winners:

Darren Whitehead – Sportsperson of the Year
Evan Kopchinsk – Male Athlete of the Year
Lori Earl – Female Athlete of the Year

For more: Sportsperson and Athletes of the year to be honored Friday night

klavoie@panow.com