Surging Jets provide a challenge
Winnipeg is arguably the hotter team after Vancouver loses a pair at home
Dale Weise was just a boy when the National Hockey League uprooted his hometown Winnipeg Jets and moved them to Phoenix.
The weak- at- the- time Canadian dollar, lack of luxury suites at Winnipeg Arena and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s master plan for expansion down south were all reasons why the Jets left town. But it was devastating for a city so fervent about the game and the team.
“I think I was about seven or eight. I didn’t really quite understand the magnitude of it,” said the Canucks forward Wednesday.
“I just thought we were losing a team and I knew we were getting the [ Manitoba] Moose, so obviously it wasn’t quite an NHL team, but in Winnipeg I think everybody is pretty passionate about hockey, regardless of if it’s the minor leagues or the NHL.”
The Canucks entertain the Jets tonight at Rogers Arena, making it the first time a Winnipeg NHL team has played in Vancouver since Feb. 13, 1996 — a span of 16 years.
Weise, who grew up in Winnipeg and played his minor hockey there, admitted that although he doesn’t know if he’ll be in the lineup tonight — he’s been a healthy scratch in the last four games — he’s had this date circled on his calendar since the Canucks claimed him off waivers from the New York Rangers just before the start of the season.
“I’ve been Winnipeg’s biggest supporter. When they didn’t have the team there, I told everyone what a great hockey city it was and a couple of people that aren’t from the city, that haven’t really been there, don’t really know the kind of passionate fans that they have there and the kind of people that live in Winnipeg,” he said.
“I’d suggest to anybody, go take in a game.”
That’s a popular refrain for most in the league who have been associated in some way with the Jets, or even dating back to Winnipeg’s days as the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League.
“They are very passionate about their hockey,” said Canucks forward Mason Raymond, who spent parts of the 2006- 07 and 2007- 08 seasons with the Moose.
“It’s a Canadian city that loves their hockey team and I think they really missed the Jets when they were gone. To see them back now and to see them doing well, it’s not only great for the NHL, but it’s great for the city of Winnipeg.”
Head coach Alain Vigneault lauded the work of Mark Chipman, the chairman of True North Sports and Entertainment, for not only treating the Moose with the utmost professionalism, but his dedication to bringing the NHL back to Winnipeg.
“If there was some way for him to bring back a team with his partners to Winnipeg, he would do it. And give him full marks. He pursued it, he did it the right way, he didn’t offend anybody, he did what he had to do and now a great Canadian city has got an NHL team there,” said Vigneault, who was head coach of the Moose in 2005- 06.
But tonight’s contest isn’t just about a love- in with the return of the Jets, or that team’s nostalgia for that matter.
There is something of a playoff race going on.
The Canucks have lost four of their last five games — their latest was a 5- 2 drumming courtesy the Dallas Stars Tuesday on home ice — and spent much of Wednesday’s post- practice media session trying to reassure reporters and fans that the team’s latest funk is nothing to panic about.
Vancouver still sits second in the West, and was, as of Wednesday afternoon, 15 points above the five- team quagmire for the final playoff position in the conference.
The Jets, on the other hand, are holding on to the final playoff position in the Eastern Conference, just two points up on the Washington Capitals, and two points back of the Florida Panthers for the Southeast Division lead.
They’ve also won six of their last 10, and have points in eight of those games.
“It’s a big game, but it’s just like any other game, two points on the line and obviously for us we need those two points,” said blue liner Aaron Rome, who hails from the small farming town of Nesbitt, Man., about a two- to- three hour drive from Winnipeg.