More than 35 years after he last donned the green and gold, Dan Hodgson will see his number in the rafters of the Art Hauser Centre.
The Prince Albert Raiders announced on Monday that Hodgson’s #16 will be retired before the team’s game on Nov. 25. He will become just the third Raider to receive this honour with Mike Modano and Dave Manson being the others.
Hodgson spoke to paNOW after the announcement and said he’s quite humbled by the honour.
“I don’t think anybody starts off playing hockey thinking about stuff like that. When I think about how it got there and then going to Prince Albert and what we did there and all the players I played with and the coaches I had Terry and Rick, I’m humbled,” he said.
Hodgson topped the 50-goal mark and 100-point barrier in each of his three seasons with the Raiders from 1982 to 1985. He won the WHL Rookie of the Year award in 1983 and finished that season ninth in league scoring with 130 points (56g-74a) in 72 games.
In his second WHL season, Hodgson finished second in scoring with 181 points (62g-119a) in 66 games.
Hodgson was named CHL Player of the Year in 1985 as he guided the Raiders to the league’s best regular season record and eventually to the team’s first WHL title and only Memorial Cup win.
By the end of his WHL career, Hodgson put together 493 points in 204 regular season games and 44 points in 18 playoff contests. Over his regular season career, Hodgson ranks sixth all-time in points and assists and holds the Prince Albert Raiders record for most goals, assists and points.
With those stats, many Raiders fans believe this accolade should have happened sooner but Hodgson said he’s not phased by that.
“I don’t think I put too much thought into that. It is what it is,” he said. “Mine’s going up and I look at it like that. It could be the first or 50th or whatever. It’s going up there and I don’t waste too much energy.”
After his WHL days, he played four seasons in the NHL with Toronto and Vancouver along with stints in the AHL with St. Catherine’s, Newmarket, and Fredericton, and 47 games with Milwaukee of the IHL.
The remainder of his career was spent in Europe including 12 seasons in the Swiss-A league. He retired after the 2004/2005 season with the Fribourg-Gotteron HC.
Hodgson, who is Cree, was finally given his own hockey card in January of this year as part of the Upper Deck First Peoples Rookie Cards Set.
Hodgson has also been open about racism among Indigenous hockey players, sharing his experiences with paNOW in April, following reports of racial incidents from former members of Harvard University’s Women’s Hockey team.
Hodgson’s number will be retired in a pre-game ceremony before the Raiders’ home game on Nov. 25 against the Moose Jaw Warriors.
He said it’s been roughly 15 years since he last stepped in the Art Hauser Centre and it’s already going through his mind about how he will feel and what he will say during that ceremony.
“I don’t really want to miss anybody with my thank you’s,” he said. “There’s one name going up there, but it took a lot of people to get that guy to where to where he was.”
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panews@pattisonmedia.com
Twitter: @princealbertnow
