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Never seen anything like it in my life
I am going to be pretty emotional in a couple of hours.
At 3 p.m. today (mountain) my beloved Winnipeg Jets shall rise from the ashes of Gary Bettmanās failing southern experiment and return to National Hockey League action ā like a ā¦ oh damn, this is kind of ironicā¦ a phoenix.
Sixteen years ago, along with tens of thousands of other devoted Jets fans, I watched as my team, which was reaching a point where it was one of the up-and-coming teams in the league, bid adieu to Winnipeg after being ousted in the first round of the playoffs by the Detroit bloody Red Wings.
I am not ashamed to admit it but I shed tears that crappy, crappy evening.
It had been a couple of years in the making. The previous season was supposed to be the Jetsā demise, but a tiny ray of salvation shone down and they were allowed to play the 1995/96 season in Winnipeg. Despite a grassroots effort where $13 million was raised, literally from piggy banks and glove boxes and bottle drives, in some cases, the deed was done and the Jets were off to Phoenix where they became the Coyotes.
Because I am a ferocious masochist, I maintained my allegiance to the Jets down in Arizona, and am today a loyal Coyotes fan. Hey, Shane Doan, the last remaining original Jet, is still my favourite player. I still call the Coyotes the Jetdogs. Always will. Or at least until the end of this season, when the cruel wheel of NHL fortune once again grinds that cursed franchise toward its grave.
Just like the original Jets, the Coyotes have been plagued by a lack of finish in the playoffs, crummy attendance, a complete lack of respect from the hockey media, even when Wayne freaking Gretzky was front and centre with the franchise as co-owner and coach, and lousy ownership and management. They enter this season as their third being owned by the NHL. It is surely their last season in the desert unless a severely brain damaged billionaire is found who will write a cheque for a sinking ship.
Perhaps it is just the conclusion of the curse put on this team back when Ben Hatskin handed Bobby Hull the largest paycheque for a hockey player in the history of the game (at the time). The Winnipeg Jets, when they were just becoming the flagship franchise of the World Hockey Association, was the team that began the steady rise of player salaries. Them stealing Hull from the NHL would be like Alex Ovechkin being nicked from the league now. It gave the WHA credibility and it winded the smug NHL.
Twenty three years later, the fact that Winnipeg was the second smallest market in the league and could not compete with the big spenders like Toronto, Philadelphia, New York and LA, and because of the nasty disparity in the American and Canadian dollars, and because, quite frankly, support for the team wasnāt as good as it should have been been ā the team was removed from the coldest major city in the world to one of the hottest.
The Jets went to hell, almost. And I write that as a devoted fan of the Phoenix Coyotes. Continued self flagellation will damage your brain, in case you are wondering.
When the Jets were in Winnipeg, they received absolutely no respect from Canadian or American media. NONE. I remember suffering through TSN highlight packages, knowing that I would have to wait until the end of the show to see a five second clip. That is unless the Jets played Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. Then youād see the highlights near the start of the show. Half the time you wouldnāt get to see highlights of the Jets games, because the hour was up and it was more important to show folks lengthier baseball or NFL highlights, or tennis highlights or just let Leafs players rant on and on about why they sucked so badly, than give the Jets some love.
Fast forward to now ā WOW. What the hell happened?
The love that is being shown for the Jets is unbelievable.
I see it as an obvious sign that Canada has changed in the past 15 years. Our love for hockey has grown to another level, perhaps because American teams keep winning the Stanley Cup. Because of the success of the last Winter Olympics in bringing us all closer together as a nation. The global village is smaller and Canada is smaller nowadays because of changes in communication and technology.
There is a proud awareness of the fact that a place like Winnipeg should damned well have a team in the best hockey league in the world because Winnipeg is literally the perfect microcosm of Canada, wrapped into one city.
Winnipeggers have scattered around the country in droves in the past 30 years and we are now everywhere. That improved the āloveā quotient, too.
I truly believe this appreciation for one of Canadaās great cities will not wane. I donāt think I am going to have to wait until the end of Sports Desk to be able to see Jets highlights. They will appear where they always should have been ā at the start of a Canadian sports highlight show.
Today Winnipeg holds a sense of self appreciation and respect that it has not had in many decades. Canadians elsewhere will also shed tears when Andrew Ladd and the boys hit the ice at the True North.
Today, the Jets are resurrected, even if just as the Atlanta Thrashers wearing different (and better) logos and jerseys.
Today, at 3 p.m. or so, I will join many thousands of my brothers and sisters in suffering and shed a few tears of joy when Oh Canada concludes and the puck is dropped.
Today is a perfect example of how you never know what is going to happen in life and you should always embrace every breath for that could and usually does lead to wilder, more exciting and amazing things.
Today I get to shout āGo Jets Goā at the top of my lungs, frighten my in-laws and, and slide back in time 16 years, to a parallel universe.
Iāve never seen anything like it. Ā Pass the Kleenex.
Ian Cobb/e-KNOW
