All work, no play at MTS Centre

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/09/2011 (5369 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

To this point of the early chapter of the NHL’s return to Winnipeg, it’s been no pucks and all parties, at least for the fans.

The exception has been at the epicentre of the historical rebirth of the Winnipeg Jets.

For senior management at the downtown headquarters of True North, it’s been no pucks and no parties.

Not even so much as a champagne cork or a hallway high-five. Not even with Saturday’s at-long-last opening of the team’s first official training camp in the Manitoba capital.

“We’ve probably missed a lot of the euphoria because somebody behind the scenes has to do the work to create it,” said Jets assistant GM Craig Heisinger, the one man at True North known for cutting through the verbiage to get straight to the chase. “Let’s put it this way, the Winnipeg Jets aren’t just going to show up on the ice on Oct. 9 because the plane landed from Atlanta.”

Chairman and team co-owner and president Mark Chipman and Heisinger are the original hockey faces of True North and are leading a massive transition of operations from their offices next to the MTS Centre.

The group has been working since May to relocate the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg and the AHL’s Manitoba Moose to St. John’s, N.L.

As well, there have been other massive tasks to complete, including MTS Centre improvements, an office expansion, hirings, securing sponsorships and getting people through their seat-selection process.

It all leads to the NHL’s return with the Oct. 9 home opener but it’s been anything like feeling of winning the lottery or Christmas morning.

“There’s been a lot going on, including relocating an American team to a Canadian city, and we’re relocating the Moose to St. John’s,” Heisinger said. “A Canadian team to a Canadian city is a lot easier, but there’s still a lot to be dealt with in that, logistically.

“And we’ve had deals on the affiliation, getting a deal in the ECHL, plus in relocating an NHL team to Canada has its immigration and family issues, not even talking about the hockey side of it.

“We haven’t known the players, their personalities, and we don’t know what makes them tick or their families tick. We’re trying to make a good first impression in all of that and there are a lot of people behind the scenes doing a lot of work.”

Who’s got time for a celebration? Chipman said the organization has barely had time to collect its thoughts so it can move on to the next assignment.

“I can tell you, because there’s so much going on, you don’t get to pause and deeply reflect,” Chipman said. “But it is cool, even though I can’t tell you it’s fully penetrated my mind yet, mostly because we haven’t played.

“It’s still hard to fully imagine it but I think that opening game (Oct. 9) will be the most real. And those games in Chicago and Phoenix, they’ll be very, very real.”

While the team’s fans lap up every tidbit of news, Chipman and Heisinger have been trying desperately to keep the blinkers on.

“We’ve been running at a very high pace not only since May 3 but long before that,” Chipman said. “It’s been exciting on the one hand but on the other hand, it’s just been a lot of work for a lot of people in order to put on that game on Oct. 9.

“Nobody here is complaining about that. We’re all very honoured to be part of an NHL organization but it’s not as though the work stops on Oct. 10 for our group.

“We feel like we’re just getting started. It’s a very, very demanding business that is going to place a high degree of pressure and demands on a lot of people.”

Chipman said the pressure is something the organization takes very seriously, even in these days of city euphoria.

“I don’t think anybody fears it, it’s just the reality of it,” he said. “Our organization is very popular at the moment but we haven’t lost a game yet.

“In the end, our focus is entirely on winning hockey games. That’s our purpose.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

LOST in the excitement for the NHL’s return to Winnipeg is the affection some had for the Manitoba Moose.

The AHL team is relocating to St. John’s, N.L., as the Winnipeg Jets’ top affiliate.

One such person with an affinity for the Moose is the team’s caretaker, GM Craig Heisinger. He wasn’t advocating for the Moose to stay when an NHL opportunity arose but he wants to make sure it’s not forgotten how proud True North was and is of the Moose.

“We were pretty proud of the product we had before,” Heisinger said. “The ability to move up a league is fantastic but it’s not like we were discouraged with the product we had before.

“It’s hard to let the Moose go, for me, and we’ve always had hockey here. It was a building block for what it is now.”

The Moose have been a core part of Heisinger’s body of career work.

“It irritates me to no end with people who have congratulated us because we have hockey back in Winnipeg,” he said.