Winnipeggers’ support not solely built on ‘buy-in’ By: Rebecca Chambers Posted: 5:32 PM CST Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/02/2024 (614 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I was waiting to board a plane a few years ago. Bored and alone, I took to people-watching, regarding the other travellers waiting for the flight home on this last leg from Minneapolis.

There seemed to be no one for business class; instead they were all clustered in family groups, wrangling children or shifting restlessly in uncomfortable chairs, waiting for the economy boarding call.

It’s strange to view oneself with an outsider’s eyes, a bit unsettling to realize some of the stereotypes applied by others might have some truth. Winnipeggers like to look down our noses at Toronto or Vancouver, scoffing at the high cost of living and intolerance of snow, taking what superiority we can from our frugality and frostbitten toughness.

Yet here we are, bedecked unironically in fanny packs and windbreakers and neck pillows, chatting about the weather and the Jets, awaiting transport back to our home planet.

We’re an odd bunch, we Winnipeggers. An unlikely assembly plunked in the middle of the Prairies. We rejoice when anyone acknowledges our existence, even disparagingly. “We were born here, what’s your excuse?” reads the city limits sign in one Simpsons episode. We love to be noticed.

But alas, the nice things keep disappearing, swept away by time, apathy, and the lack of the necessary funds to anchor them to this place or rebuild in their absence.

The same buildings burn once, twice, three times. The transit buses grow more sparse and less safe, and the shelters that kept us from the weather are dismantled and disappearing. Boards cover windows. Sewage spills into our river.

Bit by bit, brick by brick, our city seems to be returning to the Earth. Even winter has largely deserted us this year.

We struggle to feel pride in our city, and we struggle to feel ownership over its triumphs and trials. We’re the one who’s picked last. We’re the tag-along neighbourhood kid with a runny nose, the one bigger kids whisper about and then run away from.

But we’re also the overlooked diamond in the rough. The kicked-puppy underdog. The scrappy holdout. We’re happy just to have a shot at the big times. Put us in, coach.

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So last week when Jets co-owner Mark Chipman commented on lacklustre season-ticket sales with, “It’s not going to work over the long haul,” he struck at the heart of our desire for legitimacy.  The ensuing collective panic was partly quelled by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s in-person reassurances to Winnipeg fans on Tuesday.

Although a city-wide exhale has perhaps been breathed by hockey fans, Bettman’s advice to “get over your anxiety and come to games” is about as nuanced a marketing strategy as the old Kern-Hill ads telling us someone left the sofa-making machine on.

Anxiety about the state of downtown is certainly occupying some of the empty seats at Canada Life Centre this season, but there’s something deeper that’s making the pleas from True North particularly uncomfortable, and it goes beyond hockey.

Anxiety about the state of downtown is certainly occupying some of the empty seats at Canada Life Centre this season, but there’s something deeper that’s making the pleas from True North particularly uncomfortable, and it goes beyond hockey.

When the Jets returned in 2011, we felt seen. We were recognized for our commitment to our little city. We were about to hit the big time again and show the rest of the continent Winnipeg was a real city with real hockey culture.

But despite the economic investment and vision for our city, True North never seemed to return the appreciation, at least, not in the ways customary on Planet Winnipeg.

Jets 2.0 has felt much more corporate from the get-go: splashy, expensive, and a little intimidating. This is a big-city product in a very small town, and the marketing strategy could have been more reflective of that.

A hockey club that understands our culture and celebrates our uniqueness would go a long way toward bridging this gap.

What could that look like?

Season tickets that came with “buddy” passes once in a while? Concessions that sell local beer? Corporate tickets tailored to small- and medium-size business owners? Chartered park-and-ride buses departing from locally owned restaurants? Free honey dill sauce with ticket purchase?

Regardless, something more than just, “Come on down!” is needed to stir us to action.

Hockey presents a rare unifying force for Winnipeggers to rally around. In a city terminally sprawled into increasingly siloed neighbourhoods, the fans have been made to feel like guests, instead of hosts, of our team.

True North needs to offer us more than something we can simply buy.

In a place where nice things don’t seem to last, Winnipeg needs something we feel we truly own, something we help to build, together, and something that speaks to our unique identity in the way NHL hockey could, if only it would.

rebecca.chambers@freepress.mb.ca

Rebecca Chambers

Rebecca explores what it means to be a Winnipegger by layering experiences and reactions to current events upon our unique and sometimes contentious history and culture. Her column appears alternating Saturdays.

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