Evander Kane and the Jets will enjoy a hero’s welcome in Winnipeg this season and quite likely beyond. (Fred Greenslade/Reuters)

By Stu Hackel

“It’s crazy here,” said Brett MacLean, the 22-year-old leftwinger, about his new city. MacLean has just had his first skate with the Jets, who rescued from him from the AHL on Thursday. On Sunday, he’ll be in the lineup against the Canadiens when Winnipeg begins a new era.

From every indication, it’s all Jets, all the time in the ‘Peg. Game 1 will likely be the hardest ticket in the history of the city. The Winnipeg Free Press had an item Friday that said Prime Minister Steven Harper had requested 14 tickets for his cabinet members. He was politely turned down and given a pair.

“Someone told me at school that someone sold a ticket for two grand for the opener,” said Ben Carr, a Winnipeg school teacher who was on the other end of my phone call Friday morning.

There’s no way to adequately understand what it means to the city to have the Jets back without speaking to a Winnipegger. We thought about calling Neil Young, however CBC got ahold of him first. But Carr certainly qualifies. The 25-year-old native who today teaches Grade Six recalls, “I was in Grade Six when the Jets left town and my kids now, the kids I teach, they get the team back. Full circle. Fifteen years.”
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According to The Business Journals, Denver leads the NHL’s current “overextended” markets, but there’s very likely nothing wrong with the city’s ability to support the Avalanche that a little winning wouldn’t fix. (Ron Chenoy-US PRESSWIRE)

By Stu Hackel

Other than the sadness of Rick Rypien’s funeral on Saturday, a hypothetical exercise by a business publication became the biggest hockey story during an otherwise quiet weekend. Conducted by The Business Journals, which owns various weekly U.S. newspapers devoted to commercial news in their respective markets, the study written by G. Scott Thomas examined 58 North American cities that do not have an NHL team and tried to determine which would be most suitable based on their wealth.

It’s a limited, one-dimensional study, of course, so when the results indicated that the best places for a new or relocated NHL team included not just major markets like Houston, Las Vegas, Orlando and Seattle, but also Riverside-San Bernardino, CA, Bridgeport, CT, Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA, Honolulu and even good ol’ Atlanta while Hamilton and Quebec City were considered borderline, well, you haven’t heard such howls since Chester Burnett recorded for Chess Records in the mid-20th Century.
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Winnipeg’s hockey history is proudly linked to the Jets of captain Lars-Erik Sjoberg, here with the WHA’s Avco Cup after beating rival Edmonton in 1979, that pioneered the current NHL’s fast-paced style. (AP)

By Stu Hackel

The Forks is a beautiful and historic public park, commercial area and meeting space where the Assiniboine River flows into the Red River. It’s where Winnipeggers gathered in 1996 while rallying to save the Jets. Today, thousands gathered there again in celebration of the return of the NHL to their city.

Wearing Jets jerseys and carrying Canadian flags, they streamed into the park. Big screens were set up so people could watch the announcement from the MTS Centre and start the party on the spot, although long before the official word was heard, street hockey games had already broken out at The Forks. One of the players was reportedly Thomas Steen, the former Jets star.
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Sharks forward Ben Eager is taking some real heat in San Jose for his antics that helped cost his team Game 2 and created a more charged and distracting atmosphere for Game 3. (Harry How/Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

The Sharks play their biggest game of the season — perhaps a franchise-defining game — tonight when they host Vancouver in Game 3 of the Western Conference Final. San Jose’s demolition in Game 2 was so one-sided at 7-3 that it had the Versus postgame show derisively playing “Sweet Georgia Brown,” the Harlem Globetrotters theme song, under the highlights of the Canucks snazzy puck movement. That would make the Sharks the Washington Generals, the stooges.

The lack of respect accorded the Sharks is, unfortunately, part of their image as a good regular season team that’s never quite good enough in the postseason. They’ve never gone beyond the third round and, while no shame should be attached to dropping four close games to the eventual Stanley Cup champs, as they did last season, they are indeed chronic underachievers.

At some point, however, if you want to be champs yourself, you have to win a series against a strong opponents and unless the Sharks find the next gear to make it a 2-1 series and then do it again to tie things up, there will be another long summer of questioning at the Shark Tank.

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There may be nothing about the Thrashers’ attendance woes that a little winning (in the postseason) wouldn’t fix, but then again, Atlanta’s fans are notoriously fickle. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

Hockey traditionalists — and I am one — frequently criticize the NHL for locating teams in the Sun Belt and claim their problems are simply a matter of their location. But the easy explanation isn’t always the right explanation, and in the case of the Atlanta Thrashers, ownership’s legal entanglements and team’s competitive futility during the course of its existence have easily contributed as much, if not more, to the franchise’s failings.

Chris Vivlamore in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday that if the current owners, Atlanta Spirit, don’t find additional partners or a buyer for the whole franchise that are willing to keep the Thrashers in town, the team may go the way of its predecessor, the Flames, and move.
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While Matt Carle’s Flyers have soared, Dustin Byfuglien’s Thrashers have seen the air steadily go out of their surprisingly strong start to the season. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

It’s the All-Star break and the stretch run is nearly upon us. Each NHL team has played in the neighborhood of 50 games, a fairly strong sample to gauge what kind of club it has this season. The trade deadline is about a month away, so things could change, but let’s pose a simple question today: How happy are the fans of each NHL team at this point in the season?

Here’s how the fans of the Eastern Conference teams might be feeling. (Click here for my take on the West.)
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Get out your glasses: the Habs and Leafs will coming at you in 3D. (Graig Abel/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

Televised hockey in 3D makes its debut in Canada this weekend when the Maple Leafs host Montreal on Saturday, and Dave Stubbs of The Montreal Gazette wrote Thursday in that paper’s Habs Inside/Out blog, “It begged my question on Twitter last night, ‘Do the Leafs even have 3D?’ But Dion Phaneuf is back in Toronto’s lineup tonight, so I guess they do.”

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By Stu Hackel

On Tuesday, we noted the unusual words of NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly regarding the future of the Thrashers in Atlanta. He essentially said that the franchise may have to be relocated. Thursday night on the Thrashers’ telecast, team president Don Waddell told TV analyst and SI.com columnist Darren Eliot, “I can tell you, we’re not moving. We are committed to trying to make it work in Atlanta. We need the support of the fans, obviously, and if we continue with the product we have now, there’s been a lot of reasons over the years not to come watch the Thrashers. Now there’s no reasons any more….I can’t emphasize enough, our goal is to make it a strong hockey market in Atlanta. People have asked for a competitive team – we’re very competitive right now. We’re out beating the drum. We need to get more people out there.”

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Wealth is no guarantee, but the Red Wings wisely use theirs on shrewd management and scouting that finds and develops gems like Henrik Zetterberg, a seventh-round draft pick in 1999. (Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

Timing may not be everything, but it’s a big thing, and with news of the potential Maple Leafs sale rushing from behind to swamp word of the potential Sabres sale, there was no better time than yesterday for Forbes Magazine to publish its annual valuations of NHL franchises.

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