To The Fans of the Winnipeg Jets

I’m a Winnipegger.  Born there, raised there, and, until recently, had lived there my entire life.  The only live NHL game I have ever been to was around Christmas in 1996 — the visiting Chicago Blackhawks losing to the Jets.  I was, and still am, a Blackhawks fan and when the first brand of Jets went south to Phoenix, it didn’t hit me that hard.  I was seven-years-old, far more concerned with figuring out mathematics and when I could bring out the toboggan.  With fifteen years of support for the AHL’s Manitoba Moose after the Jets departed, I grew up knowing that Winnipeg is a hockey city — not by being told, but from experiencing it first hand.

The buzz surrounding the Jets return isn't contained to just Winnipeg (Photo by Andre Ringuette for the NHL via Getty Images)

I’ve written about this before on this blog, but I woke up late the day they came back.  In a move that is very uncharacteristic of myself, I called in sick to work — a lie — and headed down to the Portage and Main, followed by a walk to the Forks.  The NHL was back.  The city was absolutely buzzing; it still is.  It was something I had never experienced in Winnipeg.

Lost within the buzz was the reality of what was coming to Winnipeg.

What Could Realignment Mean for the NHL?

Gary Bettman, along with the NHL's Board of Governors, have reportedly been talking about the possibility of realignment for the 2012-13 NHL season

Over the past week, and just days succeeding the NHL’s Board of Governor’s meetings, the story had broke from multiple sources that the NHL is looking at what would be a drastic realignment of their current divisional and conference format.  Many of the reports, including those from the Ottawa Sun’s Bruce Garrioch and ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun, have stated that the NHL is looking for a format that would separate the two conferences into four divisions.  On the heels of the Atlanta Thrashers move to Winnipeg, and the Jets subsequently taking on the role of the fifth team in the current format’s Southeast division, the current format has put the first-year team into a travel nightmare.

The current format, which features six divisions (Northwest, Pacific, Central, Northeast, Atlantic, Southeast) consisting of five teams and three of these divisions in each conference (East and West), is not without flaws and the NHL is very aware of this.  Situated in the Western Conference, both the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Detroit Red Wings are located within the eastern time zone thus playing the majority of their contests outside their natural zone.  On top of playing outside their natural zone, the Red Wings and Blue Jackets have to deal with the fact that televising their games and drawing viewers is made more difficult by having to broadcast the games outside of the ideal time — between 6:30 and 7:30 pm.  Additionally, they will play home games either half or a full hour later than teams within their own division.

Many had believed that realignment was going to be transpire because of the relocation of Atlanta.  It was thought Winnipeg would be shifted to the Western Conference with one team moving back to the Eastern Conference to even both Conferences at fifteen teams a side.  That said, there are very few who believed it would be taken to this extreme.

But what will the realignment do for the National Hockey League?

Florida Panthers do not Qualify Niclas Bergfors, two others

Late this afternoon, Harvey Fialkov of the Sun Sentinel (@hfialkov on Twitter) broke the news that the Florida Panthers and GM Dale Tallon had made the decision to not tender qualifying offers to Niclas Bergfors, Byron Bitz, or Steve Bernier.  The move, a surprising one for a Panthers team that is scratching and clawing to make their way to the salary cap floor, will leave the three players as unrestricted free agents heading into July 1st.

Niclas Bergfors (11) is rubbed out by Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin (8)

Although the move, for Panthers fans, may seem the right one, it raises some questions about former first round draft pick Niclas Bergfors.

Bergfors, the 23rd selection of the 2005 NHL entry draft by the New Jersey Devils, was said to be one of the big bargaining chips that was needed from the Devils in order to complete the trade that saw Russian superstar Ilya Kovalchuk head to the Swamp.  In the trade that took place in February of 2010, the Devils shipped off Bergfors along with prospect Patrice Cormier, defenceman Johnny Oduya, and a first-round selection in the 2010 entry draft for Kovlachuk and young defenceman Anssi Salmela.

Should the Jets Fly Again?

It’s no small story that in the past week a group of businessmen under the title of True North Sports and Entertainment (TNSE) finalized their purchase of the Atlanta Thrashers from the Atlanta Spirit Group.  While the purchase was met with great jubilation in the city of Winnipeg and the buzz in Manitoba’s capital has been palpable, there has been an underlying question that has flown under the radar.

Mark Chipman was the focal point for the effort of True North Sports and Entertainment bringing the NHL back to Winnipeg. (Image: Canadian Press/Dave Lipnowski)

Winnipeg, which was once the host of the WHA and NHL Winnipeg Jets, had lost a team in 1996.  The story has been run over a thousand times since the purchase of the Thrashers and all that lead up to it, but a brief — and I mean brief — refresher is as follows: no sturdy ownership, struggling Canadian dollar, Richard Burke and Steve Gluckstern purchase the team, and Jerry Colangelo (the now former owner of the Phoenix Suns) convinces Burke and Gluckstern to agree to let the team move south to help fill out his building in Phoenix.

Just as the story of the Jets demise has been beaten into the ground, so has the tale of how the Phoenix Coyotes have turned from a new franchise with earning potential in a large market — the sixth largest television market in the US — to one of the most desolate buildings in the entire league.  The team, now under NHL ownership and sunk deep into a black hole of debt, is still struggling to find someone willing to take the ownership reigns and give the team some sturdy ground to stand on.  It was all but a certainty the team that had once left, the true Winnipeg Jets franchise, would be making its way back to the prairie hub which it had left fifteen years earlier.

Though, while to most it seemed the most logical of decisions, it was not to be.  The NHL, with the backing of the City of Glendale to cover up to $25 million in losses, kept the team in Phoenix, citing that it didn’t want to relocate any of its franchises at the time.  However, just a handful of days succeeding the decision not to relocate the fiscally drowning Phoenix franchise, news broke of the Atlanta Thrashers possible sale and lead to what would subsequently be the purchase by TNSE.

Now that the sale has been finalized and is just in a brief holding pattern as it waits for the approval of the NHL’s Board of Governors, the ticket drive, the aptly named “Drive To 13,” is underway with an astounding 7,158 season tickets already being purchased.  With TNSE knowing full well that the 13,000 season tickets will be purchased before the June 21st Board of Governors meeting and three weeks until the NHL Entry Draft, the question that has seemingly slipped the mind of many is whether or not the team will retake its original moniker — the Jets.

While many in the city of Winnipeg have, without a doubt, already believed it’s predestined that the team will be called the Jets, there are still a fair share of skeptics, many of which believe the root of the doubt can be sourced to the ownerships unwillingness to release the name.  In not releasing the name — at least not until the completion of the season ticket drive — it seems as though Mark Chipman et al are trying to let the excitement of landing a franchise drive season tickets sales before the agony of changing the chants of “Go Jets, Go!” to something unfamiliar to those who believed in the return of not only NHL hockey, but the return of the Jets — their Jets.

But are these those Jets?  Are they the Jets of Hull, Hedberg, Steen, Hawerchuk, Khabibulin, and Selanne?
Are they the Jets that won three Avco Cups, but nothing more than the ownership of the original “White Out” in the NHL?

To ask that would be to ask if the Minnesota Wild are the same team that left Minnesota and headed south to Dallas and became the Stars, or if the Thrashers of yesterday are the same team that left for Calgary and remained the Flames.

Jets great Teemu Selanne is a giant part of the history of hockey in Winnipeg, but should he be associated with a new franchise?

While neither city, Minnesota nor Atlanta, adopted the name of the past, they didn’t make a mistake.  This was a new beginning, a blank slate and a chance at a brand new legacy.  Though the respective choices of Minnesota and Atlanta made sense due to the similarity — and, in Atlanta’s case, exactness — of the names of those which had previously left, Winnipeg should look to distance itself from what once was.

The Jets, albeit a name and a team that was cherished and embraced with the most heartfelt sincerity, had an NHL legacy laced with failed expectations and a penchant for coming up short.  While the fans were raucous and the product on ice was always on the cusp of achieving something greater than its eventual fate, it was a team that often left fans with a want for more.

Winnipeg has been given an opportunity to build something new, almost from the ground up, with a franchise that is in its infancy in the grand scheme of things.  The core group of talent is there to make a city that once hung its collective hat on the legend of “The New Boss” sing a new tune; Evander Kane, Dustin Byfuglien, Tobias Enstrom, and Zach Bogosian are just a few of the burgeoning stars that could help Winnipeggers close the book on what was a storied franchise, but a history that belongs with the Phoenix Coyotes.

Among the litany of reasons for taking up a new team name is just that; the history of the Winnipeg Jets is one that is also the history of the Coyotes.  Are we to believe that the Coyotes’ current franchise milestones will all be reset?  Do Shane Doan’s games played count as those played for two different franchises?  Are Hull and Steen to have their jerseys removed from the rafters of Jobing.com Arena and re-raised back in Winnipeg?

It would seem unjust to wipe a team of its history, as if to brush aside the fact that part of the background of the Coyotes is not to include their relocation from Winnipeg.  In re-naming the new Winnipeg franchise, which is all we can really call it for the time being, we would be creating a disassociation of all things Jets from the Coyotes which would not only wash the Coyotes of their history, but leave everything Thrashers to be forgotten.  Forgive what may be taken as crassness in the following statement, but the sad and untimely death of Dan Snyder can’t be forgotten just because Winnipeg wants to relish in past glory.  His name and his number are part of the history of the franchise the people of Winnipeg and TNSE have inherited from Atlanta Spirit Group, the city of Atlanta, and — as laughable as some may make this out to be — the fans of Atlanta Thrashers hockey.

Winnipeg has a chance to revitalize itself, let go of the past, and take on a new face, a new name, and new hope.  They have a chance at true contention, something the former Jets never seemed poised to do.  While the uproar of those who are outspoken supporters of the Jets name will create quite a stir, the Jets are gone, they moved to Phoenix, and they left a hole in this city.  Mark Chipman filled Winnipeg’s hockey void with the Manitoba Moose, and the city embraced them as best they could.  This should be no different.

The Jets may be gone, they’ll certainly never be forgotten, but now it’s time to look to the future of what can be for Winnipeg’s NHL future.

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