Jets blown away by whiteout

By: Tim Campbell Posted: 12:30 AM CDT Tuesday, Apr. 21, 2015

The 15,016 fans who whited up the MTS Centre didn’t disappoint.

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The 15,016 fans who whited up the MTS Centre didn’t disappoint.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/04/2015 (3794 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The 15,016 fans who whited up the MTS Centre didn’t disappoint.

They went home disappointed, though, after a game of wild swings ended with a 5-4 overtime victory for the Anaheim Ducks.

That puts the Winnipeg Jets in a 3-0 hole in this first-round Stanley Cup playoff series, with Game 4 coming on Wednesday night in downtown Winnipeg.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Fans cheer minutes prior to the start of the third game of the Stanley Cup playoff series between the Winnipeg Jets and the Anaheim Ducks at MTS Centre Monday night. — MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Fans cheer minutes prior to the start of the third game of the Stanley Cup playoff series between the Winnipeg Jets and the Anaheim Ducks at MTS Centre Monday night.

“It was special,” said Jets winger Blake Wheeler. “It was great. The fans were unbelievable. That was one you’ll always remember. Too bad it wasn’t more fond memories.”

Jets winger Lee Stempniak said the whiteout hit a new level for him.

“It was an unbelievable experience in the building,” Stempniak said. “Right at the start, I personally have never had anything like that before and we certainly fed off the energy.

“We had a great start. We were all over them, forced some turnovers and icings. Yeah, it’s disappointing on a couple of levels to go down 3-0 in the series, and also not to deliver for our fans.”

Jets centre Bryan Little, who put his team ahead 4-3 late in the second period, said Monday morning he had high anticipation for what was to transpire at the first NHL playoff game in Winnipeg in nearly 19 years.

After the game, he was impressed.

“It was loud, the fans were really into it the entire game,” Little said. “The atmosphere was incredible. It was a pretty exciting game back and forth. It was a fun game to play in, but it definitely would’ve been nice to have a better outcome at the end.”

Even Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau gave a fair salute to the Winnipeg faithful. Especially as the playoffs move on, it’s fairly rare to find someone saying something about anyone or anything on the other side.

“Well, it certainly was loud and certainly gave them energy,” Boudreau said. “I don’t know if we handled it great or not but we handled just enough to survive.

“Once you get into the game sometimes you don’t hear a lot of that. At the beginning it was incredible.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca