Driving north on the barren, two-lane Manitoba Highway 10, you might feel swallowed by endless, non-descript trees with nothing larger on the horizon. No signs of commerce for miles and as such, no signs of life. Only ruggedness on one side and desolation on the other.
Inching closer to the next town, a railway creeps out of the trees and might accompany you for stretches along the highway. But trains only run from Winnipeg to The Pas once a week on their affably-named “Scenic Adventure Route.”
The people of The Pas have an understandable amount of pride in the place often referred to as “The Gateway to the North,” but they will also be the first to tell you: The town that made one of the newest Toronto Maple Leafs, Connor Dewar, does not lend itself to producing NHL players.
“You have to love the outdoors,” Greg Hunter, one of Dewar’s coaches in The Pas, said of the town of 5,639. “But shopping-wise, it’s starting to dry up a bit up here. We’re kind of a stop-and-go spot, to be honest.”
Consider the list of Canadian-born players who come from as remote a place as Dewar does: Buffalo Sabres forward Dylan Cozens is the lone active NHL player from one of Canada’s three territories, but was raised in a town (Whitehorse, Y.T.) more than five times the size of The Pas. Washington Capitals forward Nicolas Aube-Kubel was born well off the grid in Slave Lake, Alta., yet developed mostly in a suburb of Montreal. Dawson Mercer and Alex Newhook are the two lone active NHL players born in Newfoundland.
But for Dewar, the remoteness of the place he was raised in, the lack of competitive playing opportunities and the harshness of the climate meant his upbringing in The Pas created his character. He is a feisty, hard-working bottom-line forward on the ice, and a man of few words off of it.
“It’s everything I am,” Dewar accurately summarized of being raised in The Pas during a remarkably brief “Hockey Night in Canada” interview after being acquired by the Leafs, “a scrappy person from up north.”
And now, Dewar’s unique path from The Pas and tough-as-nails character could help the Maple Leafs when they need it in the playoffs.
You can never know for sure if someone will go far in hockey, but Chris Perchaluk, another of Dewar’s earliest coaches in The Pas and a family friend, insists Dewar had something.
“My first memory of Connor,” he said, unable to contain his laughter. “Well, he was just one. I walked into his house, and I was going to meet him for the first time. And he was screaming at the top of his lungs, so upset at his father because he had to stop playing mini-sticks. He was running around the house with the mini-stick, so angry. He just wanted to play.”
Dewar’s feisty spirit didn’t just come to life in The Pas. The town made him who he is.
“The most sincere, hard-working kid you’d ever want to meet,” Hunter said. “That might come from the harshness of our winters up here: We’re minus-40 two months of the year. It creates that edge. Players are hard-nosed, they work hard, nothing (is) granted to them. Connor is typical of that. He’s worked his ass off to get where he is.”
Dewar first started playing hockey at 5. Skating came naturally to him. But if there was a battle for the puck, Dewar stayed on the periphery.
It was around this time he began watching his father play adult recreational hockey on Opaskwayak Cree Nation land. Friends would gather after long hours in the paper mill operated by Canadian Kraft Paper Industries Ltd., the town’s largest employer and where Connor’s father, Jade, worked shift work. The games were a place for friends to let out the pent-up emotion that comes from being cooped up in the mill.
After one game, Jade heard from Dewar’s mother, Kim, that their son was particularly enthralled.
“He looked up at her and said, ‘Mom, I didn’t know you were supposed to work that hard at hockey,’” Jade said.
Immediately afterward, they drove to one of Dewar’s few practices.
“All of a sudden, he wanted the puck and he never looked back,” Jade said. “I don’t know what the hell happened, but he decided to play hockey.”
Dewar could dance with the puck but from that day on, he brought a fiercer spirit into his play, game by game.
“(Dewar) would give it his all, all the time,” Hunter said. “But we had a hard time challenging him because he was so far ahead of most kids because of his skating.”
The tiny size of The Pas meant there were just two, maybe three, house league teams that would just play each other multiple times a week at the smallish Roy H. Johnston Arena. So what Dewar lacked in development opportunities, he made up for by adding the physical edge that’s become part of his DNA.
“It’s very remote. You see the same people every day,” Dewar said of playing hockey in The Pas. “Seeing the same kids all the time and playing against the same teams all the time, there’s a lot of rivalries at play. And that makes it a lot more competitive, I found.”
By the time Dewar was 11, he was the best player in his age group. Maybe one of the most gifted players from the town since defenceman Curt Giles, who still owns the record for most NHL games played (895) of any player from The Pas. Dewar’s 177 games are second on that list. “It’s a very short list,” Dewar quipped.
The Pas Minor Hockey Association created a makeshift travel team that would head out every other weekend, with their shortest trip being 90 minutes north to Flin Flon, Man., but the more regular trip being the four-hour drive (one way) south to Dauphin, Man.
“We couldn’t build an elite program because we just don’t have the population,” Perchaluk said.
It was on these trips that Dewar and his teammates realized how remote their hometown was.
“You’ve got to make do with what you have,” Perchaluk said of The Pas. “When Connor was playing, 15 years ago, and you’d go on road trips, you’d get excited just so you could shop at Walmart.”
Heckling from opposition players on the ice was common. Dewar and his teammates would get asked what it was like to come play from “The Bush.”
At home, Jade built two separate outdoor rinks for his son, the second of which came when they moved further into the countryside: It was 40 feet by 80 feet, four-foot high boards, a shack outside to properly dress and warm up, and lights so his son could play well into the night.
“Sometimes you’re using a snowblower to move the snow and it comes down right behind you. He really wanted to be out there all the time. He’d come in for some warmth but keep his skates on so he could get back out,” Jade said.
It was a place for Dewar to be free, and let the constant, swirling winds push at his back. It was a place for Dewar to shoot and let out the emotion he had building inside him.
“And I was goalie, every damn night,” Jade said.
Dewar logged hundreds of extra hours of outdoor ice time every winter. That rink was the most pivotal element to his success.
“That’s where I made all my separation,” Dewar said. “I was pretty lucky.”
Jade and Connor Dewar playing hockey on their backyard rink in The Pas. (Courtesy of Jade Dewar)
By the time Dewar was 14, his parents realized their son had outgrown The Pas, at least on the ice. He’d gotten a few questions from scouts on weekend trips about his plans. He needed time to try his hand with a Triple-A program.
Many NHL players get locked into elite-level hockey from a much younger age. But Dewar was always destined to be different.
“Kids across the province were getting to play at a level I wasn’t able to,” Dewar said.
Dewar made the four-hour trip south to Dauphin, where he had been pestered by opposition players as a child.
“I was homesick for about an hour,” Dewar said confidently.
When Jade called to check in, a story was relayed by Dewar’s billet parents: His new teammate, Tyler Jubenvill, asked Dewar how it felt to be out of “The Bush” once again.
“In The Pas, we use a different compass,” Dewar replied. “There’s North, East, West and Soft.”
Dewar would stand up to his new challenge and make the town behind him proud: He led the Parkland Rangers Triple-A team in scoring his first season before moving to the Under-18 Triple-A program as a 15-year-old.
After three years with the Everett Silvertips of the WHL, Dewar was named captain of the team.
But no joy could compare to becoming just the second player drafted into the NHL from The Pas. Being selected in the third round of the 2018 draft by the Minnesota Wild and eventually making his NHL debut in 2021-22 meant “that’s the closest I’ve ever played from home,” Dewar said with a devilish grin. The 13-hour drive from The Pas to St. Paul pales in comparison to the 22-hour haul to Everett, Wash., of course.
It was a perfect landing spot for Dewar, who earned a fan in former Wild head coach Dean Evason who hailed from, of all places, Flin Flon.
“(Dewar’s) grit and competitiveness is over the top,” Evason said.
Every summer, Dewar returns to The Pas to train and hold court at Good Thymes bar and restaurant. There’s always someone to see. These are the same people who celebrated Dewar’s trade to the Maple Leafs, and will watch closely as he tries to instill the indomitable spirit of the small town in the biggest city in the country.
The same people who understand his journey in a way only a few thousand can.
“Everybody in town knew within 20 minutes of the trade being completed,” Perchaluk said. “The whole town is behind him.”
(Top photos of Connor Dewar: Mark Blinch / Getty Images; Courtesy Jade Dewar)
