Perth Honours Four-Time Champion

Saturday, January 21, 2023

The retirement of Shawn Redhage’s jersey will kickstart a string of celebrations of Perth Wildcats legends, according to the four-time NBL champion.

Redhage’s number 42 will be raised into the RAC Arena rafters on Friday night, becoming the seventh retired jersey at the Wildcats, alongside Ricky Grace (15), Mike Ellis (6), Andrew Vlahov (21), James Crawford (7), Scott Fisher (30) and Scott Fenton (14).

Perth’s run of dominance in the 2010s saw them win six championships (2010, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020), with Redhage the first player from that era to be immortalised having been captain in 2010, and then part of the winning teams of 2014, 2016 and 2017 before sailing into retirement.

Redhage hopes his jersey retirement will be the first of many in the coming years.

<iframe src="https://omny.fm/shows/the-dribble/ex-wildcats-captain-shawn-redhage-and-perth-lynx-s/embed" width="100%" height="180" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write" frameborder="0" title="Ex-Wildcats captain Shawn Redhage and Perth Lynx star Amy Atwell"></iframe>

“You look at the success that we had. Damian Martin, Jesse Wagstaff, Matty Knight, Greg Hire – these guys on that Wildcats jersey, absolutely loved it and had a lot of success,” Redhage told The West Australian’s The Dribble Podcast.

“There haven’t been too many teams that have played in that many grand finals in such a short period of time and have been able to win a few championships along the way.

“There’s definitely some more names that are deserving, that’s for sure.”

Redhage added it was an honour to have his name and jersey alongside icons of the club.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">?? 42 FOREVER REDHAGE ??<br><br>Join us in The Jungle on Friday night to see Shawn's jersey raised to the rafters!<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/42ForeverRedhage?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#42ForeverRedhage</a> <a href="https://t.co/LnC76h6M4k">pic.twitter.com/LnC76h6M4k</a></p>— Perth Wildcats (@PerthWildcats) <a href="https://twitter.com/PerthWildcats/status/1614918630466269185?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 16, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“It’s definitely an honour you don’t take lightly. You think about those names and they’re not only icons of the Perth Wildcats, they’re icons of WA sport,” he said.

“You look at where the Wildcats are today and that doesn’t happen unless you’ve got some incredible players and human beings come before you and lay the foundations.”

Redhage played 380 games for Perth over 13 seasons, sitting third on the club’s all-time games played list after arriving having initially been discarded by the New Zealand Breakers.

He would go on to win six consecutive club MVP awards to join by Ricky Grace on the number before becoming a four-time championship winner and retiring after the 2017 triumph.

His incredible list of accolades include: