Epic victory was missing fans

Opinion

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This article was published 24/05/2021 (1569 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It will go down as one of the most improbable yet memorable victories in franchise history, the kind folks around here will be telling their children and grandchildren about. But it also had a real bittersweet element, with player after player on the Winnipeg Jets talking about the only thing missing ingredient from Sunday’s epic 5-4 overtime triumph over the Edmonton Oilers.

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“Honestly, I wish there were fans in this building. For a game like this, this would have been absolutely insane. I can’t even imagine, if this building was full, how crazy that would have been,” said Jets forward Mathieu Perreault. “In a game like this tonight when you’re down by three goals and you come back to win in overtime, the roof would have come off this building, it would have been absolutely insane.”

Chants of “Go Jets Go” could be heard on the streets outside the barn prior to puck drop. But only from a few dozen hardy fans who, bless their loyal hearts, organized a pre-game vehicle parade, and not from the masses who would normally have flocked downtown for the usual street parties. Those, of course, are completely forbidden right now, a May long weekend that most Manitobans spent in virtual lockdown.

Sure, the seats were dressed in their traditional playoff white. But there was nobody inside Bell MTS Place to pick up the towels or T-shirts that would typically be handed out to wave them in unison, which they would have been doing in an absolute frenzy as the Jets defied the odds and erased a 4-1 deficit with little more than eight minutes left in regulation.

And yes, the noise inside the rink was deafening at times. But only because the production crew had the canned sound cranked to maximum, and not from the 15,000-plus jacked-up supporters who would have probably blown the roof off the place as the home team hit the ice to welcome them back from Alberta, where they’d taken the first two games, and come completely unglued when Nikolaj Ehlers, back from an 11-game injury absence, scored the winner to make it a commanding 3-0 series lead.

“You know what, we’re jealous here now. We turn on the TV and watch the other playoff series and they’ve got fans and it seems to drive the intensity but we can only say it’s been fair. They’ve got pompoms in their seats (in Edmonton) and we’ve got coverings in ours and we’ll have to make our own enthusiasm,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said earlier in the day.

Give his club credit: They found a hell of a way to do that, even if Winnipeg’s first-ever playoff game in the middle of a global pandemic was lacking the pomp and circumstance you’d expect under normal circumstances.

Home-ice advantage? I’m not sure there’s such a thing in Canada this season, other the ability to make the last line change or sleep in your own bed at night. The Jets were a much better team on the road during the 56-game regular-season, and took the first two games of this series in Edmonton by scores of 4-1 and 1-0. The Oilers, too, were better away from Rogers Place, and looked like they were going to continue the road warrior trend until about the 52-minute mark of Sunday night.

Then it all came undone, and it’s a shame such a joyous, cathartic event — the kind people around here sure could use a lot more of these days — was played in an otherwise empty rink.

“It’s just too damn bad our fans weren’t in the building because that would have been something,” said Jets captain Blake Wheeler.

Normally, stories about games like this get better over time, with everyone and their dog claiming to have bore witness to such history. For example, approximately 100,000 Winnipeggers, give or take, will now tell you they were present at the old Winnipeg Arena when Dave Ellett scored in double-overtime to give the Jets a win over the Oilers in Game 4 of their 1990 Smythe Division semi-final series.

The Jets lost that series in seven games, just as they lost the five other playoff series against the Oilers. Now, in their seventh all-time meeting, a chance to vanquish some ghosts of the past. In that sense, you had all the ingredients heading into Sunday for something really special Except, of course, for the grim real-world situation, especially here in Manitoba which was basically under a stay-at-home order due to rising COVID-19 case counts and a hospital crunch that is seeing patients being sent to Ontario.

And as much as sports can a distraction from all that ails us, the look and sound and feel of Sunday’s game served as a vivid reminder of what’s going on around us. As Maurice said, flip the dial these days and you’ll see crowds everywhere south of the border. On Saturday night, for example, they welcome 9,762 in Tampa Bay, 6,800 in Uniondale and 4,500 just a few miles south of here in St. Paul,. On Friday, there were 12,125 in Nashville, 9,000 in St. Louis and 4,565 in Boston.

Heck, even Montreal is set to become the first of the seven Canadian NHL markets to reopen to the public when they’ll allow up to 2,500 into the Bell Centre as early as Game 6 against Toronto later this week.

A pipe dream here in Winnipeg at this point, with much more pressing public health matters taking priority.

“It’s very white, which makes it very bright out there. Obviously, we wish there were fans in the stands wearing their jerseys and ingraining that whiteout, so the atmosphere isn’t really going to change. It’s not like there is going to be extra noise because there are a bunch of white towels,” Jets centre Mark Scheifele told me following the morning skate, when I asked for his thoughts on what they’d done with the place.

He said it made it feel like home, but it’s a low-bar for the 2021 campaign. Truth is, the atmosphere was nothing like the memorable run to the Western Conference final in 2018, or even the 2019 first-round series against St. Louis. The best hope for the Jets, and their fans, is to keep winning. The longer they stretch out this season, the greater the chances are society can begin returning to normal.

“I don’t know what to say other than it would be great to have the fans. You see all those other games on TV and I just hope that at some point we have the fans back,” said Perreault.

That, folks, will be something to truly celebrate.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg