A song in the heart of a city

This past summer at a club in Cologne, Germany, a few weeks after the big news had broken and that crazy spontaneous street party had erupted at Portage and Main, the Weakerthans, who rank high among Winnipeg's gifts to the world, played to a room packed with fans who knew every word of every song.

John K. Samson was singing "One Great City," his ode to the love/hate relationship so many of us have with our hometowns. The title comes from an empty-headed slogan, no doubt the brainchild of some highly paid consultant, which was at one point featured on a road sign that greeted those arriving in the 'Peg. Something to give the place a "brand."

Just as Samson finished the line, "The Guess Who sucked/the Jets were lousy anyway," a single voice, in heavily German-accented English, hollered from the back of the room: "Welcome home, Jets." And really, how beautiful, how perfect and beautiful, was that?

Soon enough, it won't be like this at all. The poetic moments will be gone, the extreme sentimentalism will be gone, and the conversation will have turned to ordinary hockey things, to trades and free-agent signings, to coaches on the firing line, to prospects for the season. And because the team is located in a smallish Canadian market, you can add the part about revenue and attendance and the relative strength or weakness of the dollar, the challenges of remaining competitive and turning a profit, about how co-owner David Thomson may be one of the wealthiest people on earth, but is not in this to play the philanthropist.

Though NHL commissioner Gary Bettman did his best to make it seem otherwise, the league returned to Winnipeg only because it had absolutely no other option as the result of failed marketing theories and bad ownership, and the apparent geographic limits of the game's appeal. The new Jets are just another franchise attached to the New York–based sports and entertainment concern, and if their owners had followed their original inclinations, they probably wouldn't even bear the name of an extinct team that came into being as part of a renegade league, and whose NHL incarnation in Manitoba was in many ways a historic fluke.

They left the first time around because no one wanted to underwrite the losses anymore, no one wanted to build them a new arena, because it seemed like the business of big league hockey had outgrown places like Winnipeg. Though many locals wept at their departure, many others deeply and vehemently opposed throwing good money after bad, and figured life would go on.

That's all true, that's cold reality, while so much about the return of the Jets has inspired warm, open-hearted emotion, all tied to a sense of home and belonging and ownership and birthright.

What unfolded on opening night at the MTS Centre was unlike anything else in the history of Canadian sport, because never before has this particular hockey repatriation scenario played out. But it also felt a little bit like a lot of things, like the Olympics in Vancouver or the Grey Cup when it is held in Regina or the night of a Stanley Cup playoff game in Montreal when it all comes together, culture and event and time and place.

The crowds arrived downtown early, transforming what is normally a bleak and forlorn stretch of the main drag into a temporary carnival. Outside the rink, a happy throng gathered, including a guy who carried a portrait of the Queen that had the same, slightly off-kilter look as the huge image that dominated one wall of the old Winnipeg Arena.

Inside, as the big moment approached, there was a heart-tugging video montage, a stirring anthem, an electric countdown to the opening faceoff.

Then a hockey game started ... and the new Jets, who don't seem to be very good, lost 5–1 to the Montreal Canadiens, who apparently didn't read the script. And here's a first: the crowd stood and cheered through the final minute of what on any other night would have been a disheartening defeat.

So what does all of that add up to? Maybe some people in this city feel a little differently about their town today than they did on the day the old Jets departed. Maybe they have a bit more swagger in their step. Maybe they believe they're back "on the map."

But as Thomson's partner Mark Chipman has gone to great lengths to point out, the NHL didn't make Winnipeg, and the city didn't just survive but thrived in many ways during those 15 years between teams. "This is a great city," Chipman said. "It has been a great city for a long time."

Which is not the same thing as being told you live in One Great City. It requires already knowing who you are and where you come from.

Still, every once in a while, we can all use a reminder, we can all use an excuse to sing it out loud, and that's the sound you heard on that Sunday.

The lyrics here are pretty simple: "Go Jets Go."