Memorable week ends with predictable result

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/10/2016 (3249 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

 

You know you’ve messed up in a serious way when even the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are making fun of you.

“So. While you’re waiting, make plans to come back next weekend,” the Bombers tweeted from their official team account Sunday afternoon in the midst of what went into the books as a one hour and 53 minute delay to the start of the Heritage Classic between the Winnipeg Jets and Edmonton Oilers.

“We promise the game won’t be delayed due to sun.”

Ouch.

For reasons that still weren’t entirely clear by day’s end, the NHL, Winnipeg Jets and Sportsnet decided to schedule this city’s first outdoor NHL hockey game for 2 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon despite the fact the presence of sunshine at Investors Group Field would be a deal-breaker.

Sure enough, the sun rose Sunday — in the east, no less — then slowly worked its way across the sky as the day wore on. Who could have predicted that?

By the time the sun had dipped low enough on the horizon to render the game safe to play in the judgment of the league and its players association, it was the Edmonton Oilers who were throwing all the shade in a 3-0 victory over the Jets.

A week that was all about hockey memories and tradition and, yes, “heritage” ended Sunday in really the only way it was ever going to end — with the Oilers once again spoiling the party, just for old time’s sake.

A Jets’ power play that ranked 22nd in the NHL coming into Sunday — and was this team’s undoing last season — was again their downfall Sunday on the biggest stage this team has ever known.

A second-period short-handed goal by Oilers fourth-liner Mark Letestu was followed just 1:46 later by a goal by defenceman Darnell Nurse — who had just stepped out of the penalty box — and that was the game, for all intents and purposes, on a day the Jets looked inexplicably uninspired all game long.

Maybe it was that weird sun delay. Maybe it was the unfamiliar surroundings. Or maybe, just maybe, it was a very young team wilting on a very big stage.

Whatever it was, a celebration of hockey that began Wednesday night with that remarkable game-winning hat trick by Patrik Laine against the Toronto Maple Leafs went out with a whimper instead of a bang.

A Jets team that had come back from three-goal, third period deficits in both their wins this season had no late heroics on this day and an Oilers celebration at midfield as the final horn blew was all too familiar to Jets fans, who spent the better part of the 1980s watching that movie play out.

It was a forgettable ending to what was otherwise a memorable week in this town.

A Jets ownership group that for five seasons seemed to want nothing to do with the rich history of “the Jets” in this town — heck, they didn’t even want to call this team “Jets” — went all-in on this city’s hockey history over the past week, right down to the glorious red pants and throwback jerseys the Jets sported Sunday.

Saturday’s alumni game — oldtimers, who’s kidding who — drew a mind-boggling 31,317 fans and was certainly the more interesting of the two games played at IGF over the weekend. Yeah, it was played at half-speed, but unlike Sunday’s snooze-fest the score was close and, in the end, the good guys won 6-5 on — how perfect is this — a penalty shot by Teemu Selanne with three seconds left.

However, my most enduring memories of the week came Thursday at a luncheon at the Fairmont Hotel at which the Hotline was formally inducted as the charter members of a new Jets’ Hall of Fame.

That luncheon had simultaneously the funniest, most poignant and most awkward moments — well, second-most awkward after the goofy sun delay — of the week. All three involved Jets greats Ulf Nilsson and Anders Hedberg, who were brought up on stage and interviewed by Winnipeg broadcaster Scott Oake during the luncheon.

Nilsson and Hedberg have known each other forever and their long-honed shtick in which they poke at each other’s shortcomings had the crowd roaring.

It was Nilsson who also had the crowd choking up, first with his brutally honest admission he had spent his life trying to live up to a father who died when he was just 13 and then with the stunning revelation he had lost his own son to suicide last February.

Then there was the suffocating awkwardness of Nilsson and Hedberg both pointing out the elephant who wasn’t in the room — Bobby Hull, the third member of the Hot Line who chose not to take part in Heritage Week after it became clear if he did, he was going to have to answer to allegations he’d been abusive to women during his playing days.

“I’m really sad Bobby is not here because I miss him,” Nilsson told the luncheon.

“Bobby was a rebel and still is,” said Hedberg.

You know that moment when 500 people squirm at the same time? That happened.

On the plus side, everyone’s favourite portrait of the Queen — that monstrous painting that hung in Winnipeg Arena for decades — finally made its reappearance in the city, taking up temporary residence at a downtown pub where it quickly became every Jets fan’s favourite selfie backdrop for the rest of the week.

In the end, there’s no denying it was the Jets, not the Bombers, who got the last laugh. Although Ticketmaster was still listing tickets for sale at four different price-points at game time Sunday — including a pair of premium centre-ice seats — the Jets announced a crowd of 33,240.

In addition to being the largest crowd ever to witness a hockey game in Winnipeg, that number would also make it the largest crowd at IGF this year, just beating the 33,234 that saw this year’s Banjo Bowl.

Throw in the 31,317 that saw the oldtimers game Saturday and the Jets had the largest and third-largest crowds of 2016 in a facility that is supposed to be the home of the Bombers.

Who’s laughing now?

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek