From the Archives: "Geared Up for Take Off"

The following THN Archive story by Tim Campbell gives the inside look at the excitement and build up surrounding the Atlanta Thrashers’ move to Winnipeg, and the hockey-crazy fans following along with every step of the process in Manitoba’s capital.

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Geared Up for Take Off

October 17, 2011 – Vol. 65, Issue 06

By Tim Campbell

“WINNIPEG – The NHL’s return to Winnipeg has been a blend of jubilation, hype and genuine nuttiness.

Decide for yourself which of the above is more prevalent based on this scene from Sept. 2: Watching paint dry became an official media event.

The Jets invited reporters and cameras to the MTS Centre to witness the team’s new logo and lines being brushed on the ice. And yet another star was born. The arena’s ice caretaker, Derek King (not the ex-NHLer), was the interview “get” of the day.

The table had been set for 2011’s summer of mayhem in the ’Peg.

There have been graduating levels of local anticipation and emotional investment in the NHL’s return to the city, starting sometime after True North Sports and Entertainment (now co-partners Mark Chipman and David Thomson) opened the 15,004-seat MTS Centre in 2004 and before the league adopted a salary cap. Hype increased when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman went from frowning at any mention of a franchise in Winnipeg to calling the possibility “intriguing” in 2007. It bumped another notch when the Phoenix Coyotes went into bankruptcy in 2009 and Bettman, as revealed in a court affidavit, said if the league ever got to the point of having to move the franchise, it owed Winnipeg the first crack.

And on it went over the summer, with rumors, guesswork and both irrepressible and irresponsible speculation regarding the Coyotes moving back to Winnipeg, until it was the Atlanta Thrashers that actually dropped through the trap door.

True North’s May 31 deal to buy the forlorn franchise sent fans into the streets, especially at the city’s famous intersection of Portage and Main, in no less than a gale of a driving rain. The miserable day mattered not. Ending 15 years of missing the NHL was the driest, happiest feeling ever. And not all that dry in many corners, if you know what we mean.

The wackiness exploded that day and led to five months of fervor few could have conceived.

It included an all-consuming wait for the name “Jets,” which took nearly four weeks until Chipman announced it during the first round of the NHL draft; a short coaching derby involving polarized opinions on former Thrashers coach Craig Ramsay and then ultimately a change to Claude Noel; an absolute clamoring for the new logo, merchandise and jerseys; a furious debate about retired numbers of the former Jets franchise now in Arizona; and even the sale of captain Andrew Ladd’s wedding pictures to the city’s daily tabloid, the Winnipeg Sun (See sidebar for extensive summer details).

Ladd spoke for many of his teammates in saying the new Jets are amazed and still adjusting on the fly to this kind of voracious hockey appetite. “It’s such a different situation that all the guys have been in,” he said. “In a place like Atlanta, and even Chicago, you can get away from stuff, have things not come out in the media and have people not recognize you.

“But here, the magnifying glass is on pretty much everything you do. I came in the other week for an autograph signing and it turned into a big thing. I’m kind of a private guy and don’t really search for the limelight, so to have it this way is a

little different, but something I’ll have to get used to.”

The adjustment will be no small feat. Ladd was married in mid-July, not long after signing his new five-year, $22-million contract. Within two weeks, his wedding pictures were in newsprint. The team thought privacy lines had been crossed, but in the end it was no harm, no foul. “My wife was OK with it – that was the main thing, right?” Ladd laughed. “We didn’t even know why someone would want to see it. They did a good job with it and it was exciting for our photographers to be able to do it, so we didn’t really mind.”

Winnipeg GM Kevin Cheveldayoff knows he’s in the most ideal honeymoon period imaginable with the adoring public having been re-wed to its Jets and he has soaked some of that up before the haranguing and harping begins over a roster that he has changed little since being hired June 8.

The fans will undoubtedly get around to inspecting and dissecting every miniscule aspect of the personnel when the party mood subsides. This is a Canadian market, after all. But for now, Winnipeggers are just happy to have their Jets back. For three or four years prior to the Atlanta transaction, any small rumor of any team being for sale or relocated caused frantic pushing and jumping off the bandwagon of a team Winnipeg fans didn’t even have yet. The name debate, for instance, was a talk-radio leader as long as a year before the actual May 31 press conference, as the public went to and fro over Jets, Moose, Falcons or even Polar Bears.

It was simply the long, pent-up desire of a city, with a pinch of wishful thinking, which eventually came true. That genuine wishful thinking now involves being an NHL-team fan in a real NHL market, with 15 years of catching-up to do.

And that led straight to an off-season with a Jets roster that was eye-catching for its inertness, surprisingly for some given the former Thrashers’ dubious standing as 29th in the league in goals against and 27th in penalty killing for 2010-11. Combined with the large, bold question marks over who exactly will score, these sad-sack defensive rankings were neither the building blocks of a winner nor evidence for bringing back both goaltenders and all top-six defensemen, which is essentially what Cheveldayoff has done. It’s a young team that has talent and upside. But all together in 2011-12?

The madness and mayhem surrounding the Jets will push a few more points for them in the standings, and there are a lot worse things than 41 sellouts in a season, so knowing the fans are still in extended euphoria has given the team’s hockey department license to take stock before taking major action. “We haven’t gotten to know the players and their personalities,” said assistant GM Craig Heisinger. “And we don’t know what makes them or their families tick.”

Some expectations for the club are high, including the predictable stated goals from the players. Others are nonexistent because the relocation celebration matters more at present. Nonetheless, Chipman professes his key True North people are aware of expectations and have their own as well, but says they have no illusions about the new challenges ahead. “In the end, our focus is entirely on winning hockey games,” Chipman said. “That’s our purpose. With that comes lots of responsibility, but we feel very good about our organization…and feel very, very good about the people we’ve brought on into our hockey department.”

Most of the True North executives insist they’ve been so busy trying to relocate two teams in three and a half months – the American League’s Manitoba Moose have moved to St. John’s, Nfld., to become the IceCaps and the Jets farm team – they’ve had little time for the mayhem or euphoria. “We’ve been running at a very high pace not only since May 31, 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 (first regular season) game on Oct. 9. Nobody here is complaining about that. We’re all very honored to be part of an NHL organization, but it’s not as though the work stops on Oct. 10. I don’t think anybody fears it – it’s just the reality. Our organization is very popular at the moment, but we haven’t lost a game yet.”

The stability and the continuity of the hockey organization since its inception in 1996, and especially since the MTS Centre opened, is not to be underestimated, Chipman said.

“The people I place a high degree of trust in – you can’t manufacture those conditions in a short period of time,” he said. “They take years to develop. The fact we’ve had almost seven years operating in this building and have had the same senior leadership throughout that time frame gave us a chance to be successful. If we could do it all over again, 15 years may seem like a long learning curve. But I wouldn’t give back any one of those years.”

The escalating demand for everything Jets continued right through to the opener against Montreal. Team merchandise was available at more and more retailers and the gear, especially flags, could be seen throughout the city. The story long ago expanded from local to national, with fans in and out of Manitoba hanging on every word uttered by the franchise.

Even more than three months after Chipman and Bettman revealed the deal for the Thrashers, two national networks were broadcasting the jersey-rollout event live and the city’s largest newspaper saw dazzling numbers by live-streaming in a live chat while it was going on,” said John White, deputy it on its website. “More than 2,500 viewers, and 8,400 people editor, online, for the Winnipeg Free Press. “That’s second all-time only to that Glendale (home of the Phoenix Coyotes) council meeting. Each time I think it’s going to hit a certain number, it’s exceeded. We’re pretty keenly aware of the popularity of the team coming back and its importance, but even I’m getting surprised by these numbers.

“I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like for milestone games, the first game and when certain teams come to town. It’s going to be a circus for each of those.”

Like it hasn’t been going 24/7 in the big top, all three rings already.”