The original Winnipeg Jets were reluctant to leave in 1996
CBC Archives | Posted: April 28, 2019 12:30 PM | Last Updated: April 28, 2022
The last game before the franchise was moved south took place April 28, 1996
The economics of NHL hockey just weren't working for Winnipeg any more in 1996, and the franchise would be headed to Arizona.
But first they had a game to play.
CBC reporter Mark Lee summed up the action for a report that aired on Newsworld, CBC's 24-hour news channel, the day after that last game on April 28, 1996.
"With an 0-for-28 power play, it was clear there would be no coming back on the Red Wings," said Lee, who reported from the game in Winnipeg as fans continued to cheer for the team that would lose 4-1 to Detroit. "The Jets were gone for good."
With that, the Jets were knocked out in Game 6 of the first playoff round, four wins to two.
The game was over, but the players and fans didn't quite seem ready to believe it.
'Best fans in the league'
"The fans, they stuck it out and they stood behind us," said player Kris King in the Jets' dressing room when the game was over. "They showed why they're the best fans in the league."
Even after the last horn, the players were slow to leave the ice, absorbing the cheers of fans and waving goodbye.
Inside the locker room, said Lee, "reality set in."
Players stood at the mirror to shave off playoff beards, and Keith Tkachuck had yet to take off his pads long after everyone else was dressed.
"We're going to miss it," he said. "We're obviously hurt that we're out of the playoffs but if this is the way to do it, then I'm glad that I played my last game here."
'In a daze'
Jets president and owner Barry Shenkarow was in the dressing room, too.
Visibly distraught by the knowledge that it was all over for the Jets, he wandered the room "in a daze' as things wound down.
"It's too late," he said. "That's it."
Flagging attendance in recent years and the unfavourable exchange rate — salaries were paid in U.S. dollars — took a toll on the hockey club's bottom line.
"I feel for the young kids out there that really don't understand why this team is leaving," said centre Eddie Olczyk. "The business aspect of sky boxes and suites and TV revenue."
Olczyk went on to have a broadcasting career with NBC after retiring from hockey.
"Yesterday afternoon after the cheering had died," summed up Lee, "there was just resignation."
Fifteen years later, Jets fans heard the news they'd long been dreaming of: NHL hockey was coming back.
The struggling Atlanta Thrashers franchise was purchased by a new ownership group in Winnipeg and rebranded as the Jets. They would start the 2011-2012 season in a new building in downtown Winnipeg.