This really was hard to hear, and I wasn't expecting it when I opened Instagram yesterday. I've known Dale and his family for 20+ years, as I was lucky enough to have his son Eric on our minor hockey team the year they moved to the Orangeville area. In the ten years they lived here, Dale was always accessible, humble and a force for good.

His charity fundraisers were super successful and he was always willing to help out.
There was a reason I started a PC of Hawerchuk when I got back into card collecting in 2000 and that was moreso because of the person he was off the ice, not who he was on it.
A couple of memories for me:
- working with our goalies at one end of the ice, just me and Dale, Dale sends me out to the point to take slapshots at the 10 year olds... which was bad enough on it's own, but he says not to worry, he's going to deflect them. He's going to stand in front of the net AND deflect them... without any equipment on. I nervously lobbed a few in, barely getting them off the ice because I didn't want to ding him with a puck. He starts barking at me to shoot the damn puck with that lopsided grin he had. So I cranked it up and he got a stick on every single one of those, and never came close to get hit, even though I had little idea where the puck was going.
- Dale was heading to Winnipeg in the early 2000's for a weekend signing event. I work with First Nations in Northwestern Ontario, and my boss gets this idea to hire Dale to go with us for a day trip to Shoal Lake 40, just over the Ontario border. I'm the wheel man and I'm driving this big SUV with four of us in it (me, my boss, Dale and Andrew Jackson of Jackson events, the promo company Dale was working with). It was snowing and brutal weather, but we made it, though Dale was joking about us all going through the ice on the ice road into the community. I had my skates and stuff with me so he and I were supposed to run a hockey camp for a few hours with the community kids. Well, we did drills for about 20 minutes with Dale mic'ed up on the arena loudspeaker and he motions for me to come over. I skate up to him, he covers the mic, and he says "This is boring. These guys aren't having any fun. Let's just play a game." So that's what we did... and he made sure every kid on the ice got a chance to play with him, touch the puck... for the smiles on their faces, the smile on Dales was wider. He loved to play.
- Same trip, that night, we played in an exhibition game with the local adult players. They were wearing full equipment, while Dale and I were not... I was terrified because those guys could move, and they liked to keep things physical. I just stayed out of traffic. Dale, first thing he did was strike up a conversation with the youngest guy on the team. He made him his defence partner (Dale played defence to see the game, but also to be able to protect himself, though he was all over the ice with ease). He spent the whole game talking to this young man about the game, life and how to make a difference. And again, that smile was always there... except with about 5 minutes left in the game and we were down by a goal... then he got a bit snarly and said "We got to win this boys" and went out and set up the game tying and winning goals on a shift. He came back to the bench and said "Now you guys hold it". You've probably heard Dale was competitive... damn straight. lol
Those snippets are to say, the man was a gem, and I can't believe he's gone. He'd go through a wall for his friends, family, players...
Gone way too soon.
Cory