Monday, January 7, 2013

1,000 Point NHL Player Autographs - #18 Dale Hawerchuk

The Winnipeg Jets selected Dale Hawerchuk first overall in the 1981 NHL Entry Draft ahead of future Hall of Famers Ron Francis and Grant Fuhr.

He became the youngest NHL player in history to reach 100 points (since broken by Sidney Crosby) and won the Calder Memorial Trophy in 1982. The 18th highest scorer in NHL history, Hawerchuk was a prodigy from the first time he put skates on his feet. Although he retired due to injuries at age 34, Hawerchuk compiled 1,409 points (518 goals, 891 assists) in 1,188 games.

Inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2001, Dale Hawerchuk is currently the head coach of the Barrie Colts of the OHL.



'Ducky' has followed me around over my collecting years. I have four Dale Hawerchuk hard-signed autographs in my collection. The first is from 1996-97 Pinnacle Be A Player wearing his All-Star jersey for the Philadelphia Flyers. From 2000-01 Upper Deck Legends comes an Epic Signatures autograph card and from 2006-07 Upper Deck Parkhurst is Hawerchuk in his traditional Winnipeg Jets uniform. My favourite Hawerchuk autograph is from 2007-08 Upper Deck O-Pee-Chee. It's a 1982-83 O-Pee-Chee autographed buy-back rookie card of Dale Hawerchuk! Older OPC cards were randomly inserted in packs that year and I was lucky enough to get this case-hit.

1 comment:

Sébastian Hell said...

That OPC card is something!