We were doing fine without the NHL, I protested to the expats in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary, where half of Winnipeg now lives and romanticizes its past. We were humming along as a medium-sized city where the locals were finally comfortable in their nowhere-near-world-class skins. I felt Winnipeg didn't need this weird media phenomenon to reattain legitimacy in the eyes of elsewhere. And I was a little pissed. But then something happened that I did not expect. I wound up with a small share of season tickets, thereby joining Winnipeg's new overprivileged clique. I started watching the games on TV, even though I had not watched the NHL since the original Jets left town in 1996. I started reading league and team statistics online after every game. I acquainted myself with some of the math involved in playoff probability projections. I became a bit obsessed.
I thought this was an especially good piece by Bartley Kives of the Winnipeg Free Press.
Kives isn't blind to the favouritism the City has shown True North, or the jingoist undertones in the Jets franchise. That however, doesn't mean he can't enjoy the NHL's return.