Couple who got engaged at Jets playoff game 22 years ago still going strong
Rob and Penny Lesage got engaged at one of the last home games before the Jets moved to Arizona in 1996
Winnipeg Jets fans and their team may have broken up and got back together, but the relationship of a Manitoba couple who got engaged in the final minutes of a 1996 Jets game has stood the test of time.
Rob and Penny Lesage were just 22 and 21 years old, respectively, when they attended one of the final home games before the Jets moved to Arizona.
"I heard a bunch of cheering, and then I saw Rob getting down on one knee, and he had a hockey puck, and so he opened up the hockey puck and there was a ring and he proposed," said Penny.
"And on the Jumbotron it [read] 'Penny will you marry me? — Love, Rob.'"The young couple had been dating for two years when Rob popped the question halfway through the third period.
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The Jets lost that game on April 23, 1996, but the couple made the news on CBC TV's The National the next day, in a story about the team's departure.
On April 28, the Jets suffered a 4-1 loss to Detroit, eliminating them from the playoffs in the first round.
The team's run in Winnipeg was over but the engagement stuck.
The couple were married the following year in July, shortly after Manitoba endured the massive spring flood that became known as the Flood of the Century.
Grew up watching, playing hockey
Rob says he decided to propose at the game that night because the couple both loved hockey and had attended several games together.
"We always loved to play hockey and we grew up playing … and it's just been a very important part of our life," said Rob.
As the couple, now 44 and 43, prepare to celebrate their 21st anniversary this summer, hockey is still a big part of their lives.
Their children, nine-year-old Carter and 12-year-old Cassidy, both play hockey, and the family spends most of their winters at the local hockey rink in Ste. Anne, where they live.
Penny and Rob have both spent time coaching and managing hockey teams as well, and even in the summer, the sounds of hockey ring through their home.
"There's always a mini-stick game going on, or practising their shots in the garage," said Penny.
Playoff excitement brings back memories
The current playoff run brings back memories for the couple.
The Jets are up against the Nashville Predators in the second round of the race for the Stanley Cup, after knocking out the Minnesota Wild in the first round.
Despite the happiness of the day they got engaged, the memories of that last game are bittersweet.
"It was an emotional night that way as well, [realizing] that this is it, this is the Jets, they're leaving," said Penny.
"It was almost like a piece of our childhood departing as well.… It kind of left an empty feeling," she said.
Now with two kids of their own, and the Jets returned, the couple couldn't be happier they can carry on the tradition.
"For whatever [the Jets return is] doing for the adults on the social piece, I think it's a lot more important for kids, especially [like] when we were growing up — you watch the games, you want to be like those players," said Rob.
'A few rough years when he was really sick'
The couple have shared hard times as well. Rob became sick not long after they got married and battled liver disease for nearly 15 years.
"He was getting quite ill and they gave him a limited amount of time left," said Penny.
"The hockey community in Ste. Anne was extremely supportive," said Rob.
"We call it our hockey family," he said.
That extended family rallied around the couple, holding a fundraiser to help them get to Toronto for surgery two years ago.
"He had an outpouring of support, people who wanted to put their names on the list to possibly be his donor," said Penny
As it turned out, the couple ended up being a perfect match for each other in more than just marriage.
"I needed a liver transplant and it turned out Penny was a match," said Rob.
Rob initially objected to his wife undergoing the surgery, because they had children. Despite that, and the fact the odds of Penny being a match were just 30 per cent, the transplant was a success.
"He truly is my best friend and we've got this passion for hockey, for our family, for our kids, our community together," said Penny.
"We had a few rough years when he was really sick, but just like the Jets, he keeps going and he's getting stronger and stronger."
Hockey brings couple, community together
The couple have been taking in this latest playoff run by watching the games with their neighbours and their kids.
"When the Jets score, the whole house erupts," said Penny.
Rob says seeing how Manitobans have rallied behind the team shows the power the sport has to bring people together.
"Hockey brings everybody together. It's at a totally different level from any other sport."
He says the Jets have shown themselves to be the kind of team where everyone works together. It's that same sense of teamwork that makes a marriage last, he says.
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