Go ahead Winnipeg, dare to dream

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/06/2016 (3386 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For the record, it began to rain at exactly the moment — and I mean precisely, to the second — NHL commissioner Gary Bettman appeared on the JumboTron at Investors Group Field Friday night and announced the Winnipeg Jets were on the clock with their second overall pick at the 2016 NHL Draft.

In retrospect, it was a sign of things to come on a night lightning actually struck twice at Investors Group Field.

The first bolt was expected, arriving just before 6:30 p.m. when the Jets used their first pick to select — as everyone had been expecting for weeks — Finnish winger Patrik Laine.

The second bolt — and third and fourth and fifth — came about 90 minutes later in the form of actual lightning and led to the stoppage of the game, an extraordinary evacuation of fans from their seats and a 65-minute delay.

All of which was perfect, when you think about it. A city that never pays retail for anything got itself a free fireworks show on the biggest sporting night of the year.

Several thousand fans, who’d gathered at IGF 90 minutes before kickoff to watch the draft live on the stadium’s big screens, erupted as Laine made his way to the stage in Buffalo and was welcomed by a receiving line of Jets brass that included owner Mark Chipman.

It was the moment everyone had expected and yet there was still a sense of drama attached to it when it finally arrived. You couldn’t help feeling as Laine pulled on a Jets sweater on the big screen we were all witnessing a moment that will define this Jets team — one way or the other — for years to come.

A quick aside on that: a wise woman once told me expectations are nothing more than future resentments. If that’s true, the huge expectations that will welcome Laine when he arrives in River City are perhaps not the healthiest start to a relationship everyone in this town is hoping is built to last.

How about, in other words, we let the kid actually play a single game in the NHL before we pile the hopes — and frustrations — of this long-suffering sports town singularly on his 18-year-old shoulders?

This ain’t Cleveland and Laine ain’t LeBron. At least not yet.

But for one night, anyway, a fan base that has not celebrated a professional hockey championship since 1979 and a professional football title since 1990 was allowed to let their imaginations run wild.

For one night, even the impossible became possible and even the most jaded fan in this town were allowed to dare to dream that maybe, just maybe, there is an end in sight to all their suffering in a year in which the sporting gods seem to be smiling on the long suffering.

The Cavaliers broke a 52-year championship drought for Cleveland this week. The Chicago Cubs, it says here, will end a 108-year World Series drought this coming October. Heck, even doomstruck golfer Dustin Johnson has now won a major.

Dare to dream Winnipeg. And for one night, we did.

I’ve always found that moment prior to every Bombers home game when the fans all yell “True North” during the anthem to be a bit awkward. The Bombers don’t need reminding there is another team in town who is a little younger and a little sexier. Having a mistress is one thing. Calling out her name at an inappropriate time is grounds for divorce.

But what sounds awkward on most nights at IGF hit just the right note on a night that transcended Jets and Bombers and was instead a rare occasion to celebrate a city’s sporting future that seemed to get a whole lot brighter.

It was coincidental — but also not really — that on a night that was all about the future of this city’s sports scene came the news that a bit of its past — Evander Kane — was once again in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

A Buffalo television station reported Friday evening Buffalo police were once again investigation criminal allegations against the former Jets winger in connection with a dispute Thursday night at a Buffalo bar called Bottom’s Up.

Maybe nothing will come of it, just like nothing came of it earlier this year when Buffalo police cleared Kane following an investigation into an allegation of sexual assault.

But whatever happens, Kane’s the Sabres problem now and you’d have been hard pressed to find a single fan at IGF Friday night who would have traded the bright promise of the present for the never ending frustrations of that past.

As for the football, well, these are the Bombers we’re talking about.

If it can go wrong, it usually does. The opening kickoff of the season went out of bounds and resulted in a penalty.

And Bombers receiver Weston Dressler didn’t get out of the first quarter of his first game as a Bomber before taking a savage hit to the head and being done for the night — and maybe a lot longer — with what sure looked like a concussion.

Look, if it was easy this wouldn’t be the prairies and this wouldn’t be Winnipeg. Any chance this Laine kid can play football too?

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @PaulWiecek