PENTICTON, B.C. -- Trivia Question: Who is Levko Koper? Is he:

A: Salesman of the Month at the local Skoda dealership.

B: Chief perogy pincher at Yosh and Stan Shmenge's Fine Ukranian Foods.

Or, C: The kid who scored the first goal in the history of the reincarnated Winnipeg Jets franchise.

On a day when defenceman Zach Bogosian rolled into Winnipeg and stated emphatically, "I want to play here. I want to be here," the Junior Jets opened the reincarnation of this franchise in Penticton, B.C., with a perfect game, beating San Jose 4-0.

"That's all I'm trying to do here -- try to get a contract and play for the Jets," said Koper, who is here on a no-strings-attached tryout and scored twice in the opener. His Plan B will be the University of Alberta Golden Bears.

"Yeah, school is an option," he admitted. "Don't really want to do that."

Koper, a seventh-round draft pick born in Edmonton, scored the first goal, added the fourth into an empty net, and had the first Winnipeg penalty. Meanwhile Mark Scheifele -- the first player drafted by the new Winnipeg franchise back in June -- scored the second one and added a beauty assist.

He looks like a fine young player, and speaks respectfully. IF he pans out to be the face of this franchise one day, well, the Jets couldn't do much better than this.

A young goaler named Ed Pasquale, another fine trivia answer in years to come, came away with the win. All his stats are being dutifully recorded back in the Manitoba capital, where the locals paid slightly more attention to this Young Stars result than folks down in the Silicon Valley.

"Yeah, it's definitely a lot of pressure," Scheifele said. "You get the nerves starting the game. But you've got to ... do it for the people back in Winnipeg.

"There is definitely a lot of pride. They weren't the actual jerseys, but to be the first one to wear that logo in a game, it's a real honour."

Festooned in practice jerseys -- the real ones will be donned in the opening preseason game -- the Jets took one more small step in a journey that has been meticulously charted by a community that has never quite felt whole since the Jets rolled south in 1996.

As sad as those days were, it has been nothing but unbridled joy in Manitoba since the story broke that the Atlanta Thrashers were heading back to the town where Ernie Wakely tended the twine for both the junior Winnipeg Warriors and the World Hockey Association's Jets.

The moment that story broke, a road hockey game erupted at Portage and Main, using -- of course -- a beer can for a puck. The iconic intersection soon became clogged with Jets fans that May night, and they drank from fake Stanley Cups 'til the sun came up.

As Opening Night draws near, the buzz in Winnipeg has been unique. You have to have loved and lost to become a city that produces a crowd of 1,000 at a practice for rookies, where they cheered as each player stepped on to the ice.

When Blake Wheeler tweeted in August, "No jerseys for a while. Just got pants and gloves from Warrior ... I'll throw some pics on tomorrow," the ensuing story became the one of the top stories on the Winnipeg Free Press web site.

Not for the new uniforms. For the new pants.

This is the week when players will arrive in Winnipeg in time for Friday's medicals. All that concern about players perhaps not wanting to move from Atlanta to Winnipeg will be put to rest, as every one of them will follow their paycheque to a city where hockey matters as much as football and basketball did in Georgia. If not more.

"I'm here for a reason," Bogosian told a Winnipeg TV station on Monday. "That's because I want to play here, I want to be here."

He doesn't even have a contract, and he's in town getting ready for camp.

"I wouldn't come here if I didn't want to be here," he said. "I'm not obligated to be here until actual training camp. The fact is I want to come in here before camp and get into a routine, get to know some of the new people that I (didn't) meet last year. It's good to get into a little bit of a routine."

A routine that includes NHL hockey. Yes, for folks in Winnipeg, that'd be nice.

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