Harkins glad his dad was at Jets game

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This article was published 04/02/2020 (2042 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Todd Harkins found out his son Jansen had been called up to the Winnipeg Jets on Dec. 18, he couldn’t help but break down in tears.

Todd, a North Vancouver resident, was flying to Toronto and when he landed, he played a voice message from Jansen informing him of the big news.

“I played the message back three times because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and then I just started crying,” Todd told Free Press reporter Jason Bell at the time. “People were looking at me, and so, obviously, I had to tell them why I was crying.”

So you could only imagine how Todd reacted when he finally got a chance to see Jansen play an NHL game in person. Todd made the trip to Winnipeg to catch Jansen and the Jets battle the Nashville Predators on Tuesday night. It was Todd’s first time seeing Jansen live in action with the Jets.

“I started tearing up at Browns (Socialhouse) across the street before the game when I saw so many fans wearing Jets jerseys,” Todd shared via text after Nashville came away with a 2-1 overtime victory.

“Then it really hit me when I walked into Bell MTS Place and I realized that I was actually going to watch him play live. I watched warm-up and soaked it all in. When he came on the ice for his first shift, my thoughts were of all the early mornings, drives to the arena, wins and losses, the smiles and the tears, too. Mostly I thought about how much my little boy always loved the game and about how hard he worked to get here. He had a dream and to see it fulfilled live is a dream come true for me, too.”

Todd played 48 career NHL games in the early 1990s between the Calgary Flames and Hartford Whalers and had three goals and three assists. Funny enough, his first NHL goal came against the Jets at the Winnipeg Arena on Dec. 23, 1992.

Jansen, on the other hand, is still trying to find the back of the net for the first time at the NHL level. The 22-year-old winger, who was selected in the second round of the 2015 NHL draft by the Jets, has two assists in 14 games. At the time of his call-up, Jansen led the Manitoba Moose in scoring with seven goals and 24 assists in 30 games.

Jansen, who mentioned it was a dream come true to play an NHL game with his dad in attendance, would love to make an impact on the scoring sheet with the Jets, but he isn’t discouraged that it hasn’t happened yet.

“I’m not frustrated. It’s a great league, it’s a hard league,” said Jansen, who played 12:21 minutes against Nashville, the second-highest total of his young NHL career.

“Obviously, I’m just trying to do my job out there. I’m not really being leaned on to bring too much offence. Obviously, that’s fun to do and what I like to do with my game, so hopefully I can kind of start to get something going. But obviously like I said, I’m just trying to do my job out there. Play hard, play fast and help the team win in any way that I can.”

 

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31