Your Winnipeg Jets

On April 28, 1996 I went to what was the last game ever for the Winnipeg Jets. They lost in Game 6 of the first round of the playoffs. Their opponents were the Detroit Red Wings.

It was a sad day for Winnipeg sports fans. It made it harder for me to stay interested in hockey. Without a team to cheer for I became disinterested.

Over the next fifteen years many things happened. I finished my degree, the NHL made some rule changes that make the game more entertaining. I moved away from Winnipeg.

Then the unexpected happened.

Mark Chipman, David Thompson, and True North Sports and Entertainment purchased the Atlanta Thrashers and moved the team to Winnipeg. They renamed them the Jets and sold all their season tickets. And yesterday, through some luck I was in Winnipeg during the first Winnipeg Jets game in 15 years. I couldn't get tickets so I went to The Forks and watched it with a bunch of other fans.

For me, it was a special moment in my life.

The City of Winnipeg has some serious issues. There is a lot of violent crime. A lot of the city is not very aesthetically pleasing. It has long cold winters. Personal income tax is the second highest in the country without an equivalent benefit. All of that being said, it was the place to be on October 9, 2011.

People often debate the value of professional sports and why public dollars should be spent on facilities for these organizations. If you saw the intangible benefit yesterday in Winnipeg you would see why these things matter.

Yesterday, Winnipeg was alive. Everyone was wearing Jets clothing. Some was new, some was old. I'm sure some has been in the back of the closet for 15 years. It didn't matter. It didn't even matter that they lost. For the residents of the very blue collar city of Winnipeg, yesterday was about being recognized. It was about feeling included. It was about knowable hockey fans, getting their moment to shine.

The Atlanta Thrashers were not a very good team last year. There is a lot of work to make the team a real contender but you can't get the girl if you don't go to the dance and this year is all about going to the dance.

Go Jets Go!

Ontario Resident

I spent most of the day dealing with my driver's license and changing my vehicle registration. This was the last thing I needed to do in relation to the move and one of the most time consuming. I'm not going to talk about how I spent a lot of my day waiting in lines to get this done.

As I went through the motions today I unexpectedly discovered how much of my identity was attached to my driver's license and license plates.

I realize this may be a bit irrational but until I moved to Ottawa I had always been a resident of Manitoba. I had lived in a few different places in Manitoba but I had always lived in the same province. By moving to Ontario this has changed. With Manitoba plates on my vehicle, I was special in my own mind as I drove around. Now I am just like everyone else.

I'm not sure if anyone else has connected their identity to where they held their driver's license but I did. I did not expect this feeling to come about but it did. It may be that this is the last thing I had to deal with and there is no going back. I don't want to go back but I keep feeling like I'm going to wake up from the dream and go back to how life was. I'm sure this feeling will pass.

I have completed everything connected with relocating and I am now a full-fledged resident of Ottawa Ontario.