Some locals applaud NHL return to Winnipeg
Posted May 31, 2011 3:11 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
WINNIPEG (NEWS1130) – Fifteen years after the National Hockey League walked out of Winnipeg and broke the hearts of thousands of fans, it has returned home to a raucous welcome.
Mark Chipman, chairman of True North Sports and Entertainment, announced Tuesday that the company has purchased the Atlanta Thrashers and will move the team to the Manitoba capital.
“I’m excited beyond words,” said Chipman, whose group includes Canadian billionaire David Thomson.
His words set off an immediate roar of approval from fans gathered at a popular market promenade at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers called The Forks.
The sale is subject to approval next month by the NHL board of governors.
“We get to be back in a place we wish we hadn’t left in 1996,” said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.
People in Lower Mainland also cheering
People in Manitoba aren’t the only ones celebrating the return of NHL hockey to Winnipeg. The Lower Mainland’s Filipino community is partying too.
27-year-old Michael Gamboa lives in Richmond, but like many members of the Filipino community here, he was born in Winnipeg. He remembers going to the games with his dad, another die hard Jets fan.
“If you go to the games, you usually see friends and family. It was my childhood,” explains Gamboa, who notes more than half of his friends are from Winnipeg, and they’d cheer for the Jets.
“They better not call them the Thrashers, or I won’t even watch the games,” he adds
There was no immediate word on whether the franchise will be named the Jets, a sentimental fan favourite and the name of the team in its first go-round in the league. The NHL owns the rights to the name.
Hours before the announcement, the party had already started. Fans in red, white, and blue Jets jerseys began celebrating throughout the city.
They had been anticipating the announcement after word leaked out earlier this month that a deal was close between True North and Atlanta Spirit LLC, owner of the Thrashers.
Does move make economic sense?
Winnipeg’s business community is small compared to Toronto or Vancouver so sports economics expert Dan Mason with the University of Alberta says it will be up to fans to fill up the club seats and maybe even some of the luxury suites.
He says that should work out in the short term because the Canadian dollar is strong and this move has the city rabid for hockey. But in the long term Mason says the team could be asking the mayor, premier and even the prime minister for help.
“Certainly there could come a point if the dollar drops significantly and the team is struggling, we could see the team and franchise owners going to different levels of government,” he notes. Before the Jets left in the 90s, the team was getting government cash to cover losses.
The team will play in the MTS Centre, owned and operated by True North and currently the home to the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League, which is a lower-tier feeder system for the NHL. The sale price was reported to be $170 million. Almost a third of that goes to the NHL as a re-location fee.
True North also owns the Moose franchise, which is part of the Vancouver Canucks farm system.
Fan590 Sportsnet Radio reporter Dan Dunleavy is tweeting from Winnipeg. Read his tweets below:
Watch the announcement live:
