It was year ago today that the NHL returned to Winnipeg and hockey fans of the Manitoba capital, and especially Jets fans of the past, have had their own to watch once again. Sometimes it was joyful, sometimes it was frustrating, but it was always awesome just to cheer on a team in Winnipeg playing in the NHL named the Jets again.
I'm still reeling from the news and am still in party mode about the return. I can't tell you how happy it made me. Really. Even after a full season back in which I threw my hat across the room whenever they took a stupid penalty, got scored on or just generally played bad.
May 31, 2011 will forever be a day in Winnipeg sports history that will remain in infamy. I say that with no sensationalism intended. You may have seen the pictures on television of rowdy, passionate Jets fans lining the Portage and Main where it all started 40 years ago with the signing of Bobby Hull and then later, Dale Hawerchuck, breaking into impromptu street hockey games. That spontaneous reaction was just the beginning of the passion the rest of the hockey world would bare witness to during the 2011/12 NHL season. This a club of class, talent and yes, again, passion. That word cannot be reiterated enough.
When True North Sports and Entertainment CEO Mark Chipman stepped up to that podium on that wonderful Tuesday morning and uttered those words that would be remembered in Winnipeg for years to come, "I am excited beyond words to announce our purchase of the Atlanta Thrashers," I teared up. And again at the draft when he announced the team was indeed going to called the Jets, and yet again when October 9 rolled around and the sold out crowd at the MTS Centre broke the decibel meter before during and after the puck dropped at center ice to make it official.
When the original incarnation of the Winnipeg Jets left for Phoenix in 1996 to become the Coyotes, the reasons were many (a perfect storm of finances, lack of ownership, no self-sustaining arena and a weak Canadian dollar is a term a couple of sports writers accurately chose to describe the awful tragedy that was the Jets 1.0 departure) but with solid ownership, a state-of-the-art arena and a rabid fan base, this team will be here for the long-term and I predict within seven years, a Stanley Cup parade will be planned for Portage Avenue.
The return in pictures:
You see that last guy who smiled tearfully and proudly as he closed his eyes and took it all in? That was me when my Jets officially returned against the Montreal Canadiens. Not physically me. But I mean I knew exactly how that guy felt and what he was thinking, as I suspect so were thousands of other Winnipeg hockey fans did.
Thank you to Mark Chipman and David Thompson for making Winnipeg Jets fans' dreams come true.
Go Jets Go!
