“Character Determines Success.”
Those are the words that the late Darcy Haugan believed and lived by.
Those words are also marked on a plaque below a statue that is a bronze replica of the late Head Coach and General Manager of the North Peace Navigators that was unveiled to the left of the main entrance to the Baytex Energy Centre on Saturday afternoon.
“We don’t only want to honour Darcy,” says Navigators’ President, Albert Cooper, who is also one of the founders of the team, along with Haugan.
“We also really want to honour what he stood for because that is what is important for us as individuals because character does determine success.”
Haugan was the Head Coach and GM of the Northwestern Junior Hockey League from 2002-2015 and led the organization to five league titles before moving onto the Humboldt Broncos of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League.
Haugan was on the team bus destined for a playoff game in Nipawin when a semi-truck collided with the bus in the late afternoon.
Haugan was one of 16 players and personnel with the Broncos that died on April 6, 2018.
Councillor Orren Ford and Reeve Carolyn Kolebaba were also in attendance on behalf of the Town of Peace River and Northern Sunrise County respectively.
Others also got to speak, including current Navs GM, Mike Fosty, we was an assistant coach with Haugan for several seasons.
Haugan’s parents, Leroy and Shirley, along with his widow, Christina, and two sons, Carson and Jackson then came up to pull back the cover and reveal the statue of their son, husband, and father.
Christina tells the Trending 55 Newsroom that the family now lives in Cochrane.
“Both my boys are very, very, very involved in hockey so they are following very closely in their dad’s footsteps,” says a proud Christina.
“They both have career aspirations to be somewhere in the hockey world.”
She says Carson is playing out of town and that Jackson is playing for a high-level team close to where the family lives.
Christina also says that Haugan would be humbled by this type of recognition and says one of his greatest gifts was his ability to connect with people.
“He was really good at reading people and very good at including people and making them feel important,” recalls Christina.
“He was able to do it a lot of the time not saying much and was able to put people at ease and I have noticed those attributes in my kids now, which is amazing.”
She also beamed with pride when sharing an example of how Haugan’s character traits have been passed onto the next generation.
“Darcy’s mom was getting cold and my oldest (Carson) went to the truck, got her a blanket and wrapped it around her. I looked over and saw that and thought ‘that would have been Darcy’. Just quietly making sure everyone else was taken care of,” says Christina.
“One of the things I hold onto is being able to see Darcy come out in his kids every single day so that’s what keeps me going.”
– Kenny Trenton, Trending 55 Newsroom
