Fans coat ice with colours of hope

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This article was published 28/05/2018 (2851 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was the most thrilling NHL season this city can remember, and this is how it ended: with Stanley Cups on the floor of Bell MTS Place. These ones, etched not in cold silver but in grey paint, splashed on the now-silent ice.

Only drawings of hockey’s biggest triumph, this year. Not the real thing. The real one will have to wait.

Yet as hundreds of Jets fans filled the arena on Sunday to daub the rink with swaths of blue and red paint, the images they made told the story of how Winnipeggers felt an enchanted season — and its unfinished business.

It was the second time True North invited Jets and Moose season ticket holders to close out the season by painting the ice. Last year, fans covered nearly every inch of the white surface in bold-coloured messages.

This time around, the message was clear: the thrill of the Jets’ deep run lingered, fuelling hopes for the future.

Call it a collage of Jets Nation. On the ice, fans wrote missives in English, French and Ukrainian. They painted their family names and shout-outs to or from their places of origin: “From Brazil to Winnipeg.”

They wrote pleas to management — “RE-SIGN STASTNY” — and drew up kudos to individual players: Patrik Laine, Connor Hellebuyck, “Buff Smash,” Nikolaj Ehlers. “What a year,” one fan wrote, next to Ehlers’ name.

Humour, too, there was plenty of that. Jokes about hotdogs and Phil Kessel; a tongue-in-cheek epitaph for Laine’s “beautiful beard.” One fan drew a glowing red bulb, with a gleeful caption: “My Goal Light is Tired.”

And then, there were all the “nexts:” Win next year. Let’s fly higher next year. Next year, the Cup is ours.

On the ice, as the event wound to its late afternoon close, the St. Louis family lingered. It was the first time that parents Tannis and Justin had painted the rink with their daughters, 13-year-old Piper and eight-year-old Raelle.

They left several messages to the team: one, a crisp Stanley Cup, said everything about the city’s dreams.

“This is fantastic,” Justin said. “This is great, just to be able to spend an hour, be on the ice, and paint a message to the team or the player, it was fantastic.”

For a minute, the family gazed up at the arena that loomed all around them. They felt the way the rows of seats seemed to embrace them, and thought about what it would be like to be on the ice, when this place was rocking.

It gives you chills, Tannis mused, to be down at the heart of it all. Her older daughter nodded.

“It’s really cool to see where they’re playing,” Piper said. “To be like, on ice level, and see where everything happens.”

The family has been season ticket holders since the beginning. Back then, Raelle was just an infant; she has only known a Winnipeg that includes the Jets. Now, one of her earliest memories will be of the team winning.

And the girls, their parents laughed, know all the stats and all the players: their favourites are Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor. So to come down and leave their mark on the ice was a highlight way to close the season.

It’s worth taking a moment to think about that. For older Winnipeggers, the Jets’ deep playoff run healed a lot of old wounds about hockey and the city; but for the next generation, the story of their Winnipeg is just beginning.

So maybe that’s what was most on view as the ice filled up with paintings. Parents knelt to hold paintbrushes for eager toddlers, clad in jerseys which hung to their feet; older kids concentrated on making perfect brushstrokes.

The messages they left will be remembered only in photos: the ice will be cleared away as summer approaches. Yet in those Sunday hours at the rink, they painted their memories of this season, ones they will carry with them.

And let it be known: by the end of the event, near every inch of the rink was covered in bold blue-and-red colours. But not a single drop of paint ever touched the Jets’ centre-ice logo. That part remained pristine.

Until next year, and its next chance to shine and be seen.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca