A Jet By Any Other Name...

BY JESSE LIEBMAN

EDITORIAL. PHOTOS BY AP NEWS

Quick: name the all-time points leader for the Winnipeg Jets. Bet you think it's Dale Hawerchuk, right? Wrong. The correct answer is Ilya Kovalchuk, with 615 points in 594 games.


That's because for all intents and purposes, the Hawerchuk-led Jets currently play in the desert under the moniker of the Phoenix Coyotes, and have done so since 1996. The franchise formerly known as the Atlanta Thrashers now bears the Jets handle, but the similarities stop there.


When True North Sports and Entertainment unveiled the name to the hockey world at the 2011 NHL Entry Draft this past Friday, they perhaps unknowingly opened up a can of worms. Or maybe it was a can of New Coke. And just like the retooled soft drink that was an unmitigated disaster in the 1980s, it seems primed to leave fans with a bad taste in their mouths even before the Jets take to the MTS Centre ice in the fall.


True North's chairman Mark Chipman has already stated that the team's colors and logo will be different than that of its namesake.

The Jets may be cleared for takeoff, but these ain't your older brother's Jets.


It's one thing for the populace of a city to hold a deep-seated passion and sense of civic pride for its professional sports teams. It's an entirely different matter to subscribe to a theory of revisionist history that some fans in Winnipeg seem to have embraced, thinking it's still 1996 and thinking the Jets never left.


Like comedian Dave Chappelle said when referring to the late John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy's alleged trysts with Marilyn Monroe, "those two pages in history are stuck together!"

Understand this, Winnipegers: this isn't an effort to rain on your parade. But these Jets are not a reincarnation of the former World Hockey Association team that merged into the NHL in 1979. The franchise that you have been given had only one playoff appearance in its time in the South; players like Hawerchuk, Shane Doan, Teppo Numminen, Thomas Steen and Teemu Selanne never played for this franchise; they're not coming back, either. Roll out the welcome mat for Evander Kane, Ondrej Pavelec, Bryan Little and Zach Bogosian.


There will be people who will suggest that the league do something similar to how the NFL handled the Cleveland Browns' move to Baltimore in the 1990s. The Ravens were effectively treated as an expansion franchise, and the city of Cleveland entered into an agreement that if there were ever to be a new Browns franchise, it would be able to maintain the team's history, record book, colors and logo. And that's all well and good; the rub here is that the city of Winnipeg never made any sort of similar agreement with the NHL.


So when Kane steps out onto the ice as a member of the Winnipeg Jets in October, hopefully he will continue to be able to wear his trademark No. 9, a number that belonged to one of the all-time greats to have played for the old Jets, Bobby Hull, and was retired from the old team. It's been reported that Kane is going to attempt to get Hull's blessing, which is certainly a nice civic gesture on Kane's part to establish some goodwill with the locals. But it seems a tad redundant.

At the very least, the Winnipeg seems to be leaning towards going forward as a continuation of the Thrashers, a progressive move to be sure. The franchise will continue to honor the legacy of Dan Snyder, whose No. 37 was taken out of circulation after the fatal 2003 car crash that also injured Thrashers star Dany Heatley, and in many ways signaled a beginning of the end for the team's tenure in the Georgia capital.


But with the end of a franchise's existence in one city comes the opportunity for the franchise, its new ownership group, its new coach and the fans (both old and new) to surge forward and create a new chapter in the annals of hockey history.


Face it Winnipeg: you've got NHL hockey back. Now here's your chance to move on and start a new (winning) tradition. Time to see the Jets take flight.