DECADE DEFINED A NEW ERA IN WINNIPEG
Return of Jets, Bombers’ Grey Cup triumph provided the perfect bookends for 2010s
They say good things come to those who wait.
As the clock wound down on another decade, it proved to be an apt time to hoist a mug to Winnipeg sports fans for enduring hell to finally experience a taste of heaven.
If hell was the 1990s and 2000s, then the 2010s have to go down in the history books as the most celebrated and memorable sports decade this town has ever witnessed.
It kicked off with the return of the Jets in 2011, ending a 15-year period of mourning, and concluded with a Blue Bomber Grey Cup parade, burying 28 years of gridiron misery.
What other decade has provided bookends like that, with the construction of a $200-million football stadium, flaws and all, and a Jets run to the Western Conference final, sandwiched in between? Sprinkle in three long-awaited minor-league baseball titles from the Winnipeg Goldeyes, and you’ve got a 10-year run to remember.
Perhaps the 1970s can compare, at least on one level. We ushered in that decade with
Bobby Hull and the birth of the World Hockey Association, and ended it with a seat at the NHL table for the first time in our history, two massive stories that continue to reverberate today.
Toss in the three championship parades by those WHA Jets, and pro sports in Winnipeg definitely wasn’t sucking in the ’70s, even if our football team often was.
The previous decade had verified Bud Grant’s Bomber dynasty, with parades from a third and fourth Grey Cup title in a fiveyear span. But major pro hockey was still a pipe dream.
So the ’60s and ’70s were onetrick ponies trotting through Portage and Main, where we measure the impact of all things sports. It was the Hull signing that pioneered a tradition to gather at the intersection to celebrate major news from the toy department.
Four decades later, fans clogged the same spot for some impromptu street hockey, basking in the May sunshine and the confirmation the NHL was back, behind the bankroll of Canada’s richest man, David Thomson.
“I am excited beyond words to announce our purchase of the Atlanta Thrashers,” were the words, uttered by Mark Chipman, that made it official. They weren’t officially the Jets yet, but that was only a matter of time.
The news made headlines across the country and drew congratulations from then-prime minister Stephen Harper.
Fast-forward 8½ years, to a celebration that got the attention of PM Justin Trudeau and generations of fans eager to shed nearly three decades of angst for their football team.
Anyone downplaying what the Bombers’ Grey Cup championship meant this year, after 28 emotionally draining seasons of equal parts heartbreak and embarrassment, hasn’t looked into the eyes of those it touched. Head coach Mike O’shea has. “Just being around the community and listening to all the stories has been very inspiring,” O’shea said after a couple weeks of taking it all in.
“There are a few that stand out. But it’s personal. When people entrust me with letting their emotions out and giving me a story that stayed with them for a number of years, I don’t know that it’s really my place to put it out there, either.
“There’s a lot of them.”
It’s been one tough slog the last few decades, with even the most optimistic pulling paper bags over their heads in shame.
We don’t mean to dredge it all up again, but you can’t truly appreciate the good times unless you’ve lived the bad. So here’s a quick review of what may well have been the most forgettable two decades in Winnipeg sports history.
The 1990s saw the slow, painful death of the Jets, a failed savethe-team campaign culminating in its sale to a group in Phoenix.
“It was like someone stuck a fist between your ribs and pulled your heart out,” is how Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz would describe it, 15 years later.
That ultimate loss capped an underwhelming era that saw the Jets win just two playoff series in 17 seasons.
At Winnipeg Stadium next door, the same decade brought us the worst loss in Bomber history, a 68-7 playoff humiliation in Edmonton, followed by the follies of Jeff Reinebold and two of the worst seasons in franchise history.
The memory of the Grey Cup title that kicked off that decade was obliterated by the end of it. ’Nuff said about the ’90s.
The 2000s were the decade of tantalization.
The Bombers came oh-so-close to ending a drought that was taking on a life of its own, reaching two Grey Cup games only to choke on their press clippings in one and see their starting quarterback break his arm and miss the other.
Meanwhile, a new downtown hockey arena rose from the ashes of the Eaton’s building, replacing the Winnipeg Arena. But it housed an AHL team, the farm club of the Vancouver Canucks, for crying out loud, and you could hear the screams of “too little, too late.”
It turned out that new barn would be the foundation upon which the Jets would return, but for most people it was simply a half-empty reminder of what they had lost. Even misery has its limits, though, as the end of the 2000s would prove.
Ten years later, it’s hard to recognize this place, the landscape is so changed.
Top that, 2020s. We dare you.