No. 8 Should Be No. 1

This is in todays Morning Star Newspaper:

By Roger Knox

Published: September 26, 2010

The tradition of retiring uniform numbers in sports is a long one. Every major sport does it. Colleges do it. So do junior organizations. And now, the Vernon Vipers have begun what will likely be a tradition of retiring a worthy jersey number, and they started with four year veteran, and Vernon native, Rob Short's No. 20 in a nice ceremony last weekend at the Wesbild Centre.
Naturally, when you start something like this, somebody has to be first. And I have nothing against Short, nor do I mean him any disrespect. However.... It seems to me-and I've written and pushed for this before-that the first number that should be retired belongs to a man who played in Vernon in the 1960's and 70s when the team was known as the Essos.
The late Wayne Dye, No. 8. Dye, like Short, a Vernon native, is the all-time leading scorer in Vernon junior hockey history. A total of 325 points, set more then 30 years ago.
Let's face it: Dye's record will likely never be broken because anybody who can score in the BCHL dosn't stay around for more than two years before being snapped up by a university, major junior team or pro squad.
The mighty Jones twins, Kellen and Connor, didn't break Dye's record. Scott Longstaff didn't break it. Dallas Drake didn't break it. Ed Johnstone, John Price, Ernie Gare, Jason Elders, Duane Dennis, Don Murdoch, Ron Areshenkoff, Glen Metropolit, Dave Oliver, Tont Szabo, Ryan Bayda, any number of former Essos, Vikings, Lakers and Vipers didn't break it.
I understand the team has been called the Vipers for 15 years now, but that shouldn't stop the organization from recognizing one of the all-time greatest hockey players ever to come out of Vernon.
So I asked Vipers owner, Dr. Duncan Wray, would the organization look at retiring the No. 8 now worn by rookie defenceman Philip Patenaude?
"I wasn't around when Wayne Dye was here, there's a lot of history there and it's certainly something we'd consider," said Wray in between periods of last week's home loss to Merritt. "We have options to retire any number of jerseys of players who have been successful over the years and that's one that comes to the fore. We figured we had to start with somebody who was here and that I knew, and an obvious place to start, for me, was retiring Rob's jersey.
"But certainly retiring Wayne's number is something we'll consider for the future." Wray admitted he'd had lots of suggestions from fans for other players whose numbers should be hanging in the rafters.
Dye passed away in 1988 and, to be fair to Wray, his number should have been retired immediately after his death by the then-Vernon Lakers organization.
I talked to some of Dye's family, and it would mean a lot to them to have Wayne's number retired. Same with some of his former Esso's teammates.
And it would mean a lot to some of Dye's former fans. Myself included.