Suited and booted Winnipeg Jets hit runway for charitable fashion show

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/12/2015 (3624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s Tuesday night, and a couple hundred Winnipeggers have gathered at the RBC Convention Centre to watch their Winnipeg Jets take off down the runway. (Yeah, I went there and I am not sorry about it.)

Total attendance for the event was 1,000 people.

Nineteen players are modelling in the inaugural NHLPA Fashion Show. The event, which had a $125 ticket, will support the Winnipeg Jets True North Foundation as well as five local organizations chosen by the players, including The Boys and Girls Club of Winnipeg, KidSport Winnipeg, Children’s Hospital Foundation of Manitoba, Marymound and Can DO People Inc.

Essentially, I am here to report on beautiful people wearing beautiful clothes because I have a very tough life.

The vibe is fashion show meets hockey game. People are wearing everything from gowns and suits to sleek, all-black model-off-duty outfits to, yes, Jets jerseys (quelle horreur!). Stacey Nattrass sings the national anthem and everyone still shouts “true north,” but tonight, she’s wearing a gold-sequinned dress. Each player is announced at arena volume before strutting their stuff in cool casual wear from Danish fashion house Bestseller to ZZ Top’s Sharp Dressed Man, Aerosmith’s Walk This Way and AC/DC’s You Shook Me All Night Long.

MVPs are Andrew Ladd, who looks extremely comfortable up there, Mark Stuart for breaking out the hammy catalogue poses and Blake Wheeler, who had many, many fans in the stands.

The wives and girlfriends of the players are next down the runway — at least, that’s what we’re left to assume. There are no fancy, arena-sized announcements for them. Just confused stage whispering from the crowd over Michael Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel.

Happily, for the second walk — which features activewear from New Balance — Virgin Radio’s Ace Burpee and TSN’s Sara Orlesky are there to provide colour commentary, and the whole room collectively loosens up. The players are more at ease. Couples are walking together and cheese-balling it up.

The ratio of women to men is at least four to one. Onilee Zaborniak and Jenna Gates, both 28 and both very stylish, heard about the event via word of mouth. Zaborniak says she wanted to come out “to support some good causes and also to see these hot guys walk down the runway.” (Gates is here for the fashion.) Zaborniak wasn’t familiar with some of the charities — such as Marymound — and says she’s inspired to look into them.

John Campbell and his buddy Jesse Sotlar seem out of the element. The two are Jets fans and say they had to come check out the event.

“It’s funny,” Campbell says, simply.

“We’re not the fashionista types,” Sotlar adds, volunteering obvious information. Still, they concede that they’re having fun.

Dwayne Green, the executive director of the Jets True North Foundation, is there with his family. As far as he’s concerned, the night is a success. “The NHLPA, to make that effort to come to our market, is fantastic,” he says. “It’s a great show of support to the province of Manitoba and to the kids. The players always give back, but to do it in the name of the NHLPA and the charities involved, it’s pretty spectacular.

“For them to pick their own charities, it says a lot about our players. They’ve really bought into the culture of our province. We’re very philanthropic.”

The event raised $200,000, and each charity will receive $33,000.

Indeed, the promise of suited and booted Jets wasn’t the only thing that got people in the door. Our city is a generous one, and it’s because of that generosity that five local organizations will be able to continue to do the essential work they do every day.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @JenZoratti

Video: Who wins the Winnipeg Jets fashion shootout?

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