by Hot Rod Cooking
Suddenly, tuesday morning’s sun went up earlier in the prairie sky and without further ado, Winnipeggers got agaga! At last, after fifteen years of hockey deprivation, a hockey team is back!
The news got sucked in on the broadcast media! Tv and radio hosts had become more agaga on the greatest news ever received in this far white wide north of the centre of the globe!
And as if Winnipeg had become the centre stage of hockiness! Alas, Winnipeggers, at most, Manitobans, are alive again! Adrenalin and testesterone are high again! Winnipeggers woke up from the haitus to superheated news of the decade! “I could not believe it, man?” “Wow, i will postpone our wedding plan…ticket first!”
On the eve of the announcement, the city dwellers never had a chance to sleep on Monday night and had become insomiacs for final news on the return of the proverbial jet hockey team to the h20 deluge land of the prairrie from the land of jam and cracker nut Atlanta Georgia. By night, programmers and officers had all the paraphernalia for possible announcement. The Forks would be the site of the hockey slambang and at MTS would be the place where the hockey biggies would crack the biggest eggpectations about the return of the hockey! Winnipeg again is on the hockey map?
At the Forks, the parking lot was a makeover for a floor hockey game. Young and old played. And as Lady Agaga sings and pardon Lady Agaga, I would localize her song: “I do not care if your white or a black, a native or Filipino or chinese, or Canuck or a yankee…do not just be hockey nut…but a buyer of the first 13,000 season tickets! Boom! We were born this way!
Die hard jet fans tried to relocate their jerseys! “Mom, where is my jet jersey?” Remember, son, we had to get rid of those heartaches…it is gone.” “Mom, did you? Fifteen years mom, i was still on the edge of my puberty and hockey is my rite of passing to adulthood, and now i will be deprived of showing to my friends that I have been a jet hockey nut?” “Surprise, son…you even not have had attended the moose game regularly.” “That is not true, Mom, i do follow the Canucks since day one and i know that they can beat the Boston guys!” And many moms and dad had been looking around to find the old jet jersey. One young guy had a worn-out t-shirt with Hawerchulk printed at the back. Someone asked: “ Can I buy your t-shirt…i love Dale!” “No, this a family heirloom…eh.”
“I will help you to put that t-shirt at ebay…more money.” And all that Tuesday, many jet fans had been wearing t-shirt and hockey jerseys with Jet hockey players printed at the back. Sellane and Hawerchuck overshadowed other players like Hull, Caryle, Domi,(see those pics). Ron, my son, has the jet jersey! Wow! I am impressed!
The return of the hockey team in Winnipeg has become the mantra for everyone….hotels put their signs: Welcome Back, Jet! There was a sign along Pembina: Happy Birthday, Tina…and Hockey is back, sweetheart! T-shirt dealer had kicked Bateman with a t-shirt souvenir: Bateman sucks! $40.00 man! And wonders of all: hockey puck being played made of compressed can drink; a ball, and the presence of clone Stanley Cup! While Assinibboine River is raging, up to the benches along the walkway, beers flowed! Hamburgers clogged their mouths! Lips licked the lucious ice cream and coffee defined the energy driven Forks goers!
For sure, cash registers will be ringing again and hopefully, Winnipeg Downtown will be turned into a land of yayayaland from the land of bores and downton hangers-on! And of course, more panhandlers would multiply as crowd becomes denser and moneyed!
I remember the Winnipeg Arena ( i took hundreds of photoshots before it was demolished) as the centre of jockey jokes and frustrations. Until it had become obvious: “Jet is going to the other planet! Winnipeggers could not financially support the Winnipeg Jet! It sucked! Were we a third class city? Look at Alberta: two great hockey teams- Oilers of Edmonton; and Flame of Calgary! And now, Winnipeg would not hold the hockey team? Poor wWnnipeggers! Poor politicians! Cheerypickers, aha!
That’s it…we’re cheap! We’re totally in the frostlike existence! And when the Winnipeg Arena was boldozed, dream of having a hockey game went with the dust on the city’s last bite! We were as if the third world hockey city! We do not deserve this suffering, man! Just watch CBC hockey nite and gulf dark ale beer and eat a mouthful of potato chips! And that was the beginning of the generation of coach potato, eh?
I love hockey and my two sons love it so much…one time, i was with them watching the game…and because i was so emotional, especially in the dying seconds of the game and i would be in the losing side, i do shouts and snuts! “Dad, sit down.”
It is only a hockey game,” my son John would say out of embarrassment. And when the Moose was enshrined into the hearts of the Winnipeggers, I was out of the line. For me, Winnipeg Jet has no replacement! I just watch their poster: And thru my blistering eyes, it looks like the Jet behind those images! Good omen i suppose! First from the land of the rampaging Coyotes; and then to the mighty smash of the Thrashers!
And Ron has to work hard to drive him crazy to the Drive 13,000 hockey season tickets! And he has the story!
At my age, I just went Agogo last Tuesday at the Forks! “Don’t be a drag, be a hockey king! AMEN!
