09-05-2025
Fired up in Jets City
The last time Angie Craw wore her wedding dress was 25 years ago. But she promised her four children that if the Winnipeg Jets made it to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs this year, she'd put that bejewelled gown on for another spin.
'And so, here I am, wearing our team's signature white colours,' said Ms. Craw in her big puffed-out garb, standing next to her husband, Dave, donning his jersey on a warm May evening. 'I really think we're having the kind of year where we can go all the way to the end,' she beamed.
The Craws were among the thousands upon thousands of revelers who have been joining the famously roaring whiteout parties to support the Jets over the last few weeks. The team entered the second round of the NHL playoffs on Wednesday, with tickets selling out days in advance. Attendance both inside the Jets' Canada Life Centre and just outside for the downtown street bashes has reached its highest peak since the pandemic.
In a city yearning for hockey glory, with a team that hasn't made it this far in four years, the games have captured the attention of residents far beyond the arena.
Every game day, you begin spotting them in the morning, well before the puck has dropped: the superfans wearing all white across Winnipeg – at grocery stores, walking to work, catching a bus, on the way to school and even at the provincial legislature.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew and his cabinet ministers have been clad in Jets gear for multiple house sittings since the team entered round one of the playoffs in April.
At City Hall, the front entrance is flanked by two giant Jets banners. Late on the night of May 4, after an overtime win moved the Jets to the second-round series, Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham posted a photo with Mr. Kinew on social media, cheekily captioned: 'We have reached joint provincial-city agreement that you're all allowed to be late for work tomorrow.'
It is easy to observe more Jets flags and decals on cars than any other themed paraphernalia. Dozens of bars, pubs and restaurants have created new menu items and uniforms for staff, all centred around the team.
High-rise towers down Main Street, including the Paris Building and Tetra Tech office, display signs in windows in a row spelling out: 'GO JETS GO!' The same can be observed on the storefronts in suburban strip malls from the North Kildonan and Transcona neighbourhoods to Waverley West and Sage Creek.
Consignment stores, such as Plato's Closet, started offering sales on a curation of white clothing last month, with a majority of the selections needing to be restocked over and over again within days.
Gary Bettman, commissioner of the NHL, was quick to praise the city's culture around the team. 'The Jets bring people of Winnipeg together,' he told reporters this week.
'You see the connection to the club and to hockey,' he said at a stop in the city on Wednesday. 'It's part of the community. It's part of the quality of life.'
This visit to Winnipeg came with a different mood for Mr. Bettman than when he was in town before last year's playoffs. Back then, the Jets were reeling so hard from pandemic-related attendance woes that there were serious rumblings about the team leaving the city again, as it did because of financial pressures in 1996, finally returning to Winnipeg to massive fanfare in 2011.
Mark Chipman, co-owner of the Jets, assured The Globe and Mail at the time that the 'traumatic experience' of the team's departure would never happen again, and that under his watch he'd oversee the reversal of attendance problems.
He was right. The Jets' attendance quickly bounced back in the last playoffs, and has had a 13-game home sellout streak this season. Beyond individual games, the base of their season-ticket holders hasn't reached its previous high of 13,000, according to True North Sports + Entertainment, the company that owns the Jets, but it is up by 500 since last year, now sitting at around 10,000.
'I don't think tickets are an issue,' Mr. Bettman said. 'I think the club, the organization, had to go through a process of transitioning the season-ticket base. It's not the first time I've seen a club have to go through that. It's happened to other clubs where the fan base starts aging and you have to get it younger.'
Rallying attendance is one thing, team performance is a whole other battle.
Jets fans have had ample reason for their effervescence: their team, which has never won the cup, finished this past regular season with a league-best 116 points. Prospects beyond that, however, remain to be seen.
Just as the NHL commissioner was finishing his media address on Wednesday night, a long line of Jets fans snaked down the intersection of Portage Avenue and Donald Street, ready to watch their first of the best-of-seven series against the Dallas Stars, their jerseys a sea of blue, red and white.
A giant truck with the Jets logo stopped all incoming vehicular traffic, drivers in cars passing down the street honk-honk-honking and woo-wooing, as the nearby Millennium Library closed early to accommodate the crowds.
Wearing a KFC bucket as a hat, a memeable reference to the Jets' left-winger Kyle Connor, 18-year-old Logan Hemmersbach said $10 tickets to the whiteout parties are the most affordable way to get close to the action.
'For people my age, this is just about the most fun you really can have,' he said, his white hazmat suit and hat painted blue by his girlfriend, Kailey Wilson, 19. He's been meeting fellow fans at parties, who quickly feel like old pals. 'We're hugging each other today like we're best friends.'
Inside the arena, Benny, one of two mascots for the Jets (he's the original one), mustered the crowd, particularly after competitors from Dallas would score a goal.
Jay Friesen taught his two daughters, eight-year-old Bella and 10-year-old Raina, how hockey works. The girls began the game, their first, asking their dad as they walked over to their seats with popcorn and soda: 'Has it started yet? What are they doing?'
By the time the second period began, Bella and Raina had become two of 15,225 people inside and 5,000 outside nearly losing their voices, chanting cheers all night.
'We're definitely coming back again,' Raina told The Globe, her dad nodding with a satisfied smirk behind her. 'Let's hope your mother's not too upset about it being past your bedtimes though, especially on a night when we sadly couldn't win,' he replied.
Dallas took a 3-2 victory over Winnipeg in Game 1 Wednesday. The teams were set to go head to head again on Friday night.
