Behind enemy lines

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/05/2018 (2685 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The allure of the “Winnipeg Whiteout,” and the street party that takes place before, during and after, every Winnipeg Jets playoff game, is the appeal of transforming thousands of different fans into a single, uniformed, white-clad organism that is wholly concerned with supporting and encouraging the home team.

So what would happen if this collective visual, this singular passion, was disrupted by a blight of canary mustard yellow, in the form of a visiting Nashville Predator’s fan? Could a hostile destination for visiting NHL teams be a receptive environment for an out-of-town guest, or would he get pummelled with empties and abuses like an enemy visitor to the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles? I got to find out first-hand during Game 4 of this second-round series when my childhood friend Brad Cote came to visit.

The final attempt to talk some sense into this non-conforming Nashville fan came minutes before the cab arrived to take us to the game. Wanting to go on the record as having given my friend a final chance to opt out of becoming a walking bullseye, I strolled into his guest room with two options of appropriate whiteout attire for him to change his future experience. “You sure you still want to do this?” I inquired as he stood a little too smug and proud in the door way, clad in his Johansen jersey. “This is a passionate fanbase, and when that mixes with booze, you never know where that may lead.”

Regardless of my impression, Cote was apprehensive, and uncertain of what lay before him. His biggest concern was that he didn’t want it to look as though he was disrespecting the whiteout and the legion of fandom he would be conflicting with. He wasn’t wearing the jersey for attention, or to express hostility; he was wearing it as a fan of the series and a supporter of his hometown buddy, which is what he had always done.

We had both grown up in Port Moody, B.C., and when my travels with the Blue Bombers took me to Calgary, where he had settled down and started a family, I could always count on him to be one of the few blemishes in the stands wearing a Blue and Gold No. 97 jersey, getting verbally mocked and abused as he sat amongst the local Stampeders fans. Since Predators centre Ryan Johansen is also a product of Port Moody, B.C. — and he had come to know him over the years — he decided to continue his support of local, hometown athletes. It is one thing, however, to wear a Predators jersey to a regular-season Calgary Flames game, and another altogether to fly directly into the beast of rabid fan support in downtown Winnipeg for the playoffs.

The texts came raining in from all over, before hand. “Be careful out there, those Winnipeg fans are pretty wired up.” And when he was spotted on television, celebrating a goal — there were fewer than 15 Predator jerseys in a sea of over sixteen thousand fans — he was also advised, via text to “Sit down before you get beat up.” When we went for a pre-game bite at a downtown pizzeria, we were booed so heartedly it took me back to the days in Regina on a hotly contested Labour Day afternoon. You couldn’t help but crack a smile. When we made our way to the arena through the unending waves of whiteness at the street party, a local reporter made a bee line for him, and the first question he asked on camera was, “Do you feel safe?”

The funny thing about the six or so hours we spent downtown, both inside and outside the arena, in a city centre that certainly has had its fair share of regrettable headlines and statistics thrown at it, was the stark reality of his interactions with the local fan base.

Certainly after the game, there were a few single-finger salutes in passing, and some drive-by verbiage thrown at him, but the overwhelming majority of fan interactions Cote experienced were all class, and nothing short of incredible. Fans were shaking his hand, high-fiving him, admiring his bravery, offering to buy him $10 arena beers and sharing their appreciation with him about the calibre and intensity of the hockey in this series.

Just because he was a fan of the Predators and Johansen didn’t mean he had to hate the Jets. “Winnipeg is good,” is what my white hoodie exclaimed that night, and its many representatives that acted on it’s behalf, certainly lived up to the credo.

Doug Brown, once a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears weekly in the Free Press.

Twitter: @DougBrown97