Party like it’s 1979: WHA Jets gather for 40th anniversary of title

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This article was published 28/05/2019 (2343 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Eighteen players and the head coach of the 1978-79 Avco Cup champion Winnipeg Jets will be in town this week for a series of events to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their feat.

“It was the last season that Winnipeg celebrated a hockey championship and the last time kids got to skip school to watch their hockey heroes ride in convertibles in a parade,” said event organizer Geoff Kirbyson, author of the 2016 book, The Hot Line: How the Legendary Trio of Hull, Hedberg and Nilsson Transformed Hockey and Led the Winnipeg Jets to Greatness.

In 1979, the Jets won the third of their three Avco Cups — the now-defunct WHA’s equivalent of the Stanley Cup — defeating Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers in the best-of-seven final 4-2. Game 6 was May 20, 1979, when the Jets beat the Oilers 7-3 on home ice.

The victory would mark the final game of the WHA, as the majority of the “rebel” league was absorbed into the NHL a few months later.

The anniversary festivities kick off Thursday evening, with a private VIP reception at the Winnipeg Winter Club for sponsors.

On Friday, the former players will be escorted to the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame — they are all members by virtue of their Avco Cup victory — followed by a tour of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

The event is capped Saturday with a banquet (featuring a Jets player at every table), a question-and-answer session, and live and silent auctions of memorabilia at Radisson Hotel downtown — a slapshot away from Bell MTS Place, home of the NHL’s Jets. Tickets are $175 (with a tax receipt).

Proceeds from the anniversary events will be split between two hockey-related charities: the Winnipeg Foundation’s Ab McDonald Foundation, and the True North Youth Foundation.

In 2018, a similar reunion event for the 1977-78 Jets raised approximately $10,000 for the Bobby Hull Foundation for Children.

The final WHA title stands out in the city’s hockey annals because the Jets displayed far-from-championship-calibre play for most of the season, Kirbyson said.

Coach Tom McVie, who took over from the fired Larry Hillman late in the season, is remembered for pulling off a minor miracle by getting seven former Houston Aeros players (with whom the Jets were fierce rivals) to gel with the Winnipeg lineup.

The biggest name coming to town for the anniversary is Swedish hockey legend Kent Nilsson. A two-time Avco Cup winner for Winnipeg, and Stanley Cup winner for Edmonton (1987), Nilsson scored 214 points (81 goals) in 158 regular-season WHA games. He went on would add 686 points (264 goals) in 553 NHL games.

Other alumni coming to mark the anniversary include: Terry Ruskowski, Rich Preston, Morris Lukowich, Peter Sullivan, Willy Lindstrom, Roland Eriksson, Markus Mattsson, Joe Daley, Bill Lesuk, Lyle Moffat, Kim Clackson, Scott Campbell, Glenn Hicks, Paul MacKinnon, John Gray, Mike Amodeo and Steve West.

The weekend also will pay tribute to three members of the 1978-79 team who have since died: captain Lars-Erik Sjoberg, defenceman Paul Terbenche, general manager John Ferguson Sr., and assistant coach Bill Sutherland.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca