Wade Belak
Induction Year: 2025
Category: Athlete
Wade Belak was born in Saskatoon on July 3rd, 1976, but at the age of six he and his family moved to Battleford. Even though he did not play hockey until he was seven with the Battleford Community Youth Club organization, he was registered in Can Skate, which he continued until he received all his badges. He attended St. Vital Elementary School, Battleford Junior High School, and graduated from North Battleford Comprehensive High School.
Wade played all his minor hockey in the Battlefords, including two years with the Midget AAA North Stars, where he received the Top Defensemen Award for the league in his second year. He was listed as a Bantam player by the Saskatoon Blades of the Western Hockey League. In 1994, Wade was drafted 12th overall by the Quebec Nordiques, which later became the Colorado Avalanche.
After playing three years with the Saskatoon Blades, he moved on to the American Hockey League, where he as part of the Calder Cup winning Hershey Bears, the Colorado Avalanche farm team. He played along side another Battleford product, Blair Atcheynum. He played up and down for a few years with the Hershey Bears and the AHL Cornwall Aces.
Eventually Wade was able to fulfil his dream of playing in the NHL. His career took him to five teams over a span of 14 years – Colorado Avalanche, until 1998 when he was traded to the Calgary Flames; in 2000 he was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs; in 2007 he was traded to the Stanley Cup Champions Florida Panthers and finally he was traded in 2008 to the Nashville Predators. During the National Hockey League lockout year in 2004-2005, Wade played for the Conventry Blaze in England, an experience he said he would always remember. He retired from the Nashville Predators in the spring of 2011, looking forward to a second career, that of broadcasting.
Sadly, Wade passed away on August 31st, 2011 at the age of 35. He was in Toronto training for the television show “Battle of the Blades.” Even though his hockey career took him far away from Battleford, he loved to talk about his time growing up here and was always considered by his teammates “a smalltown boy at heart.” Over the past few years since his passing, his daughters have made an annual trip to Battleford to see where their dad spent his childhood. They take great comfort in seeing where he grew up. In 2024 Wade was inducted into the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey Hall of Fame, an honour that he be so proud of receiving.