Root, root, rooting for the home team
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/04/2024 (513 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
“With the win, the Jets equal the franchise record for victories, set in 2017-18, when Winnipeg finished second in the NHL with 114 points.” — Ken Wiebe, Free Press, April 19.
Let me put it for you in writing. I have the best job on Earth. Once a week, I get to write a column for one of Canada’s most illustrious heritage newspapers.
The only rule is that I have to limit the thoughts, facts, feelings, and opinions to 750 words. For a person raised in a family of Hungarian storytellers, that is the only part of the job that isn’t gentle. It doesn’t matter what I’ve got on the noodle. The mind wants to write enough pages to fill a Dostoevsky novel.
John Woods / The Canadian Press
Winnipeg Jets’ Nikita Chibrikov celebrates his game-winning goal against the Vancouver Canucks during third period NHL action in Winnipeg on April 18.
It is not news to anyone who has listened or read my words that my entire career has been a thank-you card to Canada. The Winnipeg years began in 1983.
So it’s safe to conclude that every column you see on this page is also a thank-you card to this city and this province. I don’t live here because I have a preference for Arctic weather, ancient buildings, or pot holes that put the lunar landscape to shame.
It’s the people of the prairie who keep bringing me back here. I love talking to Manitobans, and apparently enough of them to fill every hockey barn in the province feel the same way about yours truly. So whether the platform is radio, TV, podcast or this newspaper of record, I’m always talking to family.
And regardless of where the conversation begins, somewhere along the trail, someone asks “Did you see the Jets last night?” Our hockey team is the best gift in this province that never stops giving.
Sometimes we get a feeling of frustration. But life on the prairie allows us to deal with it. Whether you’re in Manitoba’s biggest city or smallest farm town, there are plenty of things that happen that force us to face frustration with a certainty that things get better eventually.
Because I’m not Ken Wiebe or Mike McIntyre, I will not dedicate any space in this column to the days of this past season where the team and fans felt frustrated and, at times, exasperated.
We knew that a better day was coming and it did.
The team wrapped up the season with more points than any other Canadian-based team. We finished ahead of Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa and the team TSN forces us to think of as the Canada’s most important, the Toronto Maple Leafs.
This past Tuesday, the Jets beat Seattle. In doing so, the home team was assured home ice advantage in the playoffs.
But as soon as the game ended, there was no TV conversation about how meaningful victory was for the Winnipeg Jets. TSN, which might as well stand for the Toronto Sports Network, immediately switched to Toronto’s hockey barn, where the Leafs had just taken a beating from the Florida Panthers.
It was particularly painful because it meant the the Leafs would finish the season behind the Bruins, forcing Toronto to begin their postseason in Boston. The last time the Leafs won a playoff series against the Bruins, every radio in Manitoba was blaring the Chipmunks singing the Chipmunk song. The year was 1959.
The Leafs’ head coach on Tuesday night was forced to comment on the mediocre play of his team. He looked like someone who just lost four rims in a St. Vital crater. He tried to come up with something positive to say.
So he looked at the camera and said the team played a good first period. “What about the Jets?” was the shout that echoed throughout our province.
Tomorrow night, our post season journey begins. More than 15,000 fans will be at the Canada Life Centre, wearing white and cheering the home team. Our opponent will be from Colorado.
My hope is they get a warm Manitoba welcome, while the Star Spangled Banner is being sung, but the warmth for the visitors needs to end once the puck is dropped and our heroes get an opportunity to fight for hockey’s holy grail, the Stanley Cup.
There is no better place on Earth to root for that than right here in my beloved adopted hometown — Winnipeg.
Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster. charles@charlesadler.com