Jets uniform still in hangar

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/08/2011 (5466 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There have been fakes and sneak peeks, but Winnipeg Jets fans will have to wait until the team’s first pre-season game to get a full look at the club’s complete wardrobe ensemble.

Blake Wheeler used his Twitter account to showcase a picture of the team’s pants earlier this week and Eric Fehr was spotted wearing a helmet with a Jets’ logo on it on Wednesday, but the whole look likely won’t be unveiled until around the team’s first pre-season games on Sept. 20 with split-squad tilts against the Columbus Blue Jackets at the MTS Centre and Nationwide Arena in Ohio.

Previously, it was reported here the first glimpse would come courtesy the Jets’ prospects at the NHL Young Stars Tournament in Penticton, B.C. from Sept. 11-15. Jets director of corporate communications Scott Brown said the Jets’ prospects would be wearing practice jerseys in Penticton.

NO NEWS IS… NO NEWS: It’s been essentially a done deal for weeks now, but according to a spokesperson at Sports Radio 1290, an announcement regarding the Jets’ radio and TV contracts — with TSN and 1290 being the rightsholders — is coming ‘soon.’

Sources say the games will not be simulcast on radio and TV and that both Dennis Beyak, a Manitoba product and the radio voice of the Toronto Maple Leafs and TV play-by-play man of the Toronto Marlies, and CJOB’s Brian Munz would be involved in the telecasts and broadcasts on TSN/1290.

A name that has recently surfaced as a possible colour analyst is Neepawa’s Shane Hnidy. Currently a free agent who was part of the Boston Bruins’ run to a championship this spring, the 35-year-old Neepawa product last week brought the Stanley Cup back to his hometown. He has played in 550 NHL games with the Bruins, Ottawa Senators, Minnesota Wild, Anaheim Ducks, Atlanta Thrashers and Nashville Predators.

DUFF WEIGHS IN: Interesting piece on ESPN.com’s website by Duff McKagan, guitarist for the band Loaded and founding member of Guns N’ Roses, on the Jets’ return to Winnipeg. You can read the full piece here:

Among the highlights, courtesy a man who — in addition to his musical career — has written for Seattle Weekly, Playboy and has an autobiography out later this year:

• “The original Winnipeg Jets franchise was moved a decade and a half ago, all the way down to Arizona, and suddenly dubbed something called the Phoenix Coyotes. Being a Seattle Sonics fan, I totally get how that sudden loss of a team and a city’s identity can throw fans into a tailspin of pain and suffering. And I can feel a kinship with the folks of another “Jet” city that had its first major-league franchise yanked out from under them.

“Don’t get me wrong, places such as Phoenix and Oklahoma City totally deserve major league franchises. If a city can support a team, then let it happen. But at the expense of a small but rigorous market like Winnipeg, it just seems like unfair bullying.’

• “Canadian cities, such as Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary, should never, ever be mistaken for anything other than hockey towns. This is centre-ice ground zero, and for Winnipeg to have ever have lost an NHL franchise in the first place seems almost diabolical. Ripping the hearts out of hard-core hockey fans and moving their team to a place in the desert that wasn’t exactly clamoring for an NHL team isn’t fair. But this is big business and with big money at stake, other “players” come into the fore. Commissioners, out-of-town deep-pocket ownership, etc.”

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca