Photo credit: Steve Dunsmoor

By Regan Bartel

Back to where it all began

Dawson Gerwing faces old team as Rockets open Eastern swing

Dec 10, 2025 | 6:00 AM

The Kelowna Rockets are out on their eastern divisional road trip. For a handful of players with Saskatchewan roots, this stretch of the schedule carries meaning beyond the standings.

For forward Dawson Gerwing, born and raised in Meadow Lake and now calling Saskatoon home, this week is a return to familiar ground.

“It’s gonna be unreal,” Gerwing said. “Family and friends and just playing in some familiar rinks. I used to play in Swift Current, so I’m excited to go back there and mostly be around friends and family.”

104-7 The LIZARD has tonight’s game, starting with the pre-game show at 4:40 pm Pacific time, with the play-by-play at 5:05 pm.

This will be Gerwing’s first time back in Swift Current since being traded, a moment that is hard for any player to treat like a regular game.

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“You want to treat it like any other game, but for sure there is extra motivation,” he said. “I’m excited to go back and show them what I’m about now. Hopefully, we get the two points in Swifty.”

Swift Current remains one of the smallest communities in the Canadian Hockey League, yet it is a place Gerwing speaks about with appreciation.

“Honestly, it was awesome,” he said. “It is a smaller community and a lot of guys from BC or Alberta don’t really want to go there. They view it as too small or in the middle of nowhere. I liked it. The small feel. You could be anywhere in town in a few minutes. I loved my time there.”

Inside the Rockets room, the Saskatchewan players find plenty of opportunities to remind their BC teammates where they come from.

“We make a lot of prairie boy jokes calling the BC boys soft a little,” Gerwing said. “I’m excited to show them what it is really about. Maybe not quite as pretty as Kelowna, but I appreciate it. I don’t know if all the other boys would say the same.”

The true home stop for Gerwing on this trip will be Saskatoon, where a large cheering section is already lined up.

“Mom and dad, all my grandparents, uncles, aunties, some friends,” he said. “I can’t really put a number on it. It is going to be a lot of people. It’s going to be fun.”

He admits the presence of family adds something extra.

“Ideally every game you are going hard and doing what you can, but I am not going to pretend it is not a little extra,” Gerwing said. “You want to show those people who supported you and raised you that it was all worth it. Play my game and good things should happen.”

Gerwing’s hockey foundation runs through Meadow Lake, where his dad coached him and where long bus rides were simply part of minor hockey life.

“We were a bit isolated, three hours north of Saskatoon,” he said. “My dad coached me and a lot of my best friends today are the guys I played with growing up. We did not have big AA programs. We played lower tier until Bantam. At 15 I had to choose if I wanted to take hockey more seriously. I went to North Battleford. We played other small towns. It was a lot of fun.”

Meadow Lake has produced its share of talent.

“Blake Comeau is from Meadow Lake,” Gerwing said. “DJ King. Dwight King who won a few Stanley Cups in LA. A lot of kids looked up to him. A lot of tough guys actually.”

As for the WHL dream, it developed gradually.

“I watched the Saskatoon Blades a few times a year,” he said. “I don’t want to say it was on my mind too much growing up. I was just playing. But at 12, 13, 14, when guys around your age start getting drafted or going to play, then it gets a little more serious.”

Family remains at the center of his career, especially with both parents in the education system and his dad still serving as both supporter and critic.

“He [dad] is still my number one fan and critic at the same time,” Gerwing said. “I call him before every game and after every game.”

Expectations at home extended into the classroom.

“We had to be a little more academically inclined than the average kid,” he said. “In high school I had to take all the hardest classes. Math. Sciences. In a small community like that, if there was any horsing around, they heard about it.”

On the ice Gerwing has built a reputation as a physically imposing forward who delivers heavy but clean hits, something he takes seriously.

“As a bigger guy, you learn that sometimes you go over the line,” he said. “I am not a dirty player. At least I don’t think I am. If you start jumping, that is when you get into penalty trouble and it gets more dangerous. I am tall enough that I don’t have to jump. If I do it is probably going to hit the guy’s head. I have been suspended a bunch, so I am not on a super long leash.”

As the Rockets settle into their prairie swing playing six games in nine nights, Gerwing embraces the chance to reconnect with his roots and to show his teammates the province he calls home.

“I am excited,” he said. “Being a prairie boy is a good thing.”