Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame to add five from Westman

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This article was published 13/04/2011 (5469 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Former Brandon Wheat Kings captain Don Dietrich, longtime former owner Bob Cornell and ex-coach/GM Glen Lawson will be in fine company when they are inducted into the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame this year.

From players to coaches to owners, Westman will be well-represented when the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame honours its class of 2011. The class will also include former Wheat Kings defenceman Jayson More of Deloraine and Russell product Theoren Fleury.

In all, the Hockey Hall will induct seven players, four builders, two officials, two media members and six teams on Oct. 1 in Winnipeg.

Cornell, a longtime local businessman and former owner of the Wheat Kings, will be inducted into the builder’s category.

"There’s not too many times that you get honoured by your peers in the hockey world, so it’s almost hard to describe it," Cornell said via telephone from his winter home in Florida. "I have been in hockey all my life and it’s kind of a fitting end to your career in hockey … It’s just an honour to be included in this group, which is very deserving, every one of them."

Cornell, who grew up playing minor hockey in Brandon and went on to play at the junior level, helped financially stabilize a shaky Wheat Kings franchise by twice stepping into an ownership role, first in the 1970s and again in the 1980s when community ownership was floundering and the team faced the prospect of moving.

Cornell, who earned the prestigious WHL Governors Award in 2007 for his three decades of involvement in the league, became sole owner of the Wheat Kings in 1992 and sold the club to current owner/coach/GM Kelly McCrimmon in 2001. During Cornell’s tenure, the franchise developed into one of the league’s best, winning WHL championships in 1979 and 1996 and has continued to be one of the league’s most successful teams.

Dietrich was part of that 1979 championship team — previously inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame in the team category — and was truly humbled to be selected for induction in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

"It’s an unbelievable honour, it really is," said Dietrich.

Dietrich, who has battled cancer and Parkinson’s disease for the past decade, is being inducted in the builders category. The defenceman and former Wheat Kings captain went on to play a decade of pro hockey in North America and Europe, winning a Calder Cup in 1982 and suiting up in 27 career NHL games with Chicago and New Jersey. He returned home to Deloraine to coach everything from minor hockey to senior hockey and has been a part of Hockey Manitoba’s national coaching mentorship program.

"Probably the thing that I am the most proud of, obviously I wanted to play professional hockey for 10 years and I did. And I lived a dream by playing in the National Hockey League, although it was for a short while," Dietrich said. "But nothing beats the satisfaction of coaching people or kids and the light goes on when you tell them something."

Born and raised in Brandon, Lawson also played for the Wheat Kings back in 1953-54 and went on to coach Brandon’s juvenile team to a provincial title and later served as both a coach, a general manager and later as a part-owner of the Wheat Kings during their inaugural year in the Western Canada Hockey League in 1967.

"It’s really quite an honour to be inducted with a group of athletes, builders and sportswriters of that magnitude is really quite something," said Lawson, now a Wheat King season ticket holder who is proud to see how successful the team has gone on to become, both on and off the ice.

"Heavens, when we look back at it, just the way that it has taken off is just phenomenal. Back then, we had hard-core fans of maybe twelve hundred and today you are looking at a consistent four thousand … We used to think we were successful, too, but we never got to the level of success that Kelly has done with it today."

Meanwhile, More, who grew up in Deloraine and now lives in Tennessee, went from playing four years in the WHL — including half a season with the Wheat Kings — to playing in 406 career games in the NHL with six different teams from 1988 until the hard-nosed defenceman retired in 1999.

Fleury, who grew up in Russell before moving on to the WHL with the Moose Jaw Warriors, racked up 1,088 points in 1,084 career NHL games over 15 seasons, winning the Stanley Cup with the Calgary Flames in 1989 and helping lead Canada to an Olympic gold medal in 2002 in Salt Lake City.

Three-time Stanley Cup winner Mike Keane of Winnipeg, a gritty forward who started his career with the Montreal Canadiens and retired as a member of the AHL’s Manitoba Moose, and former NHL defenceman Neil Wilkinson of Selkirk will also be inducted.

» jshewaga@brandonsun.com