"It wasn't supposed to be this way." That's what I told my roommate as we watched the highly anticipated Hockey Night in Canada broadcast (at least for me, he really couldn't care less-he's got too much Detroit Tigers on the mind these days) welcoming back the Winnipeg Jets to the NHL.Everything was supposed to go exactly the opposite of what actually transpired. Most of it did. The CBC had a great pre-game show (including a chat with Jets owner, Mark Chipman and later, Dale Hawerchuck in the second intermission) they had a neat little "rap" montage cleverly edited together using the quotes of different people involved in both the Jets past and present with a "Go Jets Go" type-chorus. Ron Maclean and Don Cherry got the crowd pumped just with their presence.
It was after all the first time HNIC has been in Winnipeg for almost 16 years. Not only was the Jets starting line-up announced before a packed and raucous crowd, but the entire 23-man roster as well. Instead of lining up on their blue line, the Jets formed a circle around the logo at center ice and raised their sticks in acknowledgement to the crowd before a tribute to the late Rick Rypien was played on the jumbo-tron. The crowd once again sang O' Canada loud and proud and put an extra emphasis on the line "true north" when the lyric was sung. The fans even cheered NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman with a round of "Gary, Gary, Gary!" when he was being interviewed by a local radio show earlier in the evening (with the aforementioned Gary Lawless) right inside the front doors of the MTS Centre.
Then the puck was dropped. But as the Free Press's Gary Lawless said, who cares?
All in all, other than having to hear about this from three Habs fans at work (at least one in particular) this loss doesn't matter. As we've been saying all along, we've got our team back. That's all that really matters...for now. But it was supposed to be different. We were supposed to win our first game in 16 years. We were supposed to be cheering three or four times as Ladd, Bufuglien, Kane and Scheifele potted goals to make the roof cave in.
Ah well. Maybe they're saving it for Chicago?
CBC's pre-game mini-doc, "Road Back to Winnipeg"
CBC's Jets Post Game Show
