SPORTS FLASHBACK 2011: A new era for Jets in the NHL
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This Sunday will see a new era of professional hockey unfold in Manitoba, one that many people thought they would never see, when the Winnipeg Jets face off against the Montreal Canadiens in the home-opener of the 2011-12 National Hockey League season.
A generation of Winnipeg hockey fans, who fell in love with the Jets of the World Hockey Association in the 1970’s, watched the team move up to the NHL and then leave the city for Arizona in the 1990’s.
For more than a decade Winnipeg hockey fans have had only the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League to follow. Now, a dream has come true, and fans will be able to watch NHL hockey, live, again in Winnipeg.
After the Jets left for the Arizona desert in the mid 90’s, few hockey fans in these parts thought the Jets would ever return. Not because the city didn’t want them, but because the Winnipeg market was too small to afford them. When the Jets left for Phoenix, the Jets team salary was $17 million. Today, in 2011, the NHL minimum hovers around the $50 million mark.
It was pure economics that made the NHL dream seem so elusive.
When hundreds of fans decked out in original Jets jerseys gathered at the MTS centre May 31, they weren’t in the least bit dismayed by the caveat of 13,000 season tickets attached to True North Sports and Entertainment’s proposal to buy the Atlanta Thrashers for $170 million, paving the way for the NHL to return to Winnipeg.
Instead of being miffed at the idea of having to subsidize the team’s new millionaire owners, they stepped up and it took only 17 minutes to sell those 13,000 season tickets when they were put on sale, June 4.
The change in name from the Atlanta Thrashers to the Winnipeg Jets became official at the June NHL draft, when the Winnipeg Jets picked forward Mark Scheifele, seventh overall.
When the NHL season opens in Winnipeg, the seats will be filled with avid Winnipeg Jets season ticket holders, who have a real stake in the future of their NHL team.
The exhibition games have had the atmosphere of third round playoff games, so the excitement level at the home opener will be off the charts.
This season will be a wonderful bridge between generations of hockey fans in this province; those who loved and remember the old Jets and those who never saw them play.
Old-time fans will relish once again being able to watch the best hockey in the world, while new fans will develop their own heroes and favorites.
The younger guard will find in the new Jets their own Bobby Hulls and Dale Hawerchuks, and Teemu Selannes, while the old guard will remember those iconic players even as they watch and appreciate the new crop of players that are destined to steal the hearts of hockey fans in the province.
There is even reason to believe that the intensity of the home side’s passion will translate into the Jets easily having the best home ice advantage in the entire league.
It’s probably also fair to say that the team will essentially get a free ride in the first season. Expectations will increase with each passing year, but for now, hockey fans in Manitoba are so overjoyed that the Jets are back where they belong, the outcome on the ice is a secondary consideration.
So whether you’re one of the lucky ones to be in the building on Sunday or whether you watch the momentous game with friends, the home-opener against Montreal, an original six team, you just know it will be as much more than a special game; it will be a spectacle.