Sports: NHL Hockey: Winnipeg gets a new league franchise, and public goes mad with joy!

CBC News (May31,2k11)

a refWrite recommends sports news-story

Winnipeg cheers return of NHL

'It's a fantastic day for the city,' says Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz

CBC Sports 

Posted: May 31, 2011 7:06 AM CT 

Last Updated: May 31, 2011 3:14 PM CT 

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A deal has been reached to bring a National Hockey League team back to Winnipeg for the first time since 1996.

A deal to move the NHL's Atlanta Thrashers to the Manitoba capital was announced Tuesday at press conference at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg.

The team will play in the 2011-12 season.

"Today, on behalf of my family, our partner David Thomson, and our entire organization, I am excited beyond words to announce our purchase of the Atlanta Thrashers," said Mark Chipman, chairman of True North Sports and Entertainment Ltd.

As soon as the announcement was made by Chipman, thousands of fans shouted, cheered, clapped, whistled, popped champagne and sang the Stompin' Tom Connors anthem The Hockey Song at two main party places in the city: the famous intersection of Portage and Main, and The Forks marketplace.

Portage and Main was shut down to traffic for a couple of hours as an estimated 1,000 people gathered there.

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"NHL, welcome home. It's great to have you back here, it's great to have you back here where you belong," said a beaming Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger at the press conference.

"We missed you and we're going to make it work forever now that you're back."

David Thomson arrives at the James A. Richardson International Airport in Winnipeg on Tuesday. Patrice Mousseau/CBC

The sale price was not released, however numerous reports leading up to the announcement have pegged it at $170 million, including a $60 million relocation fee.

"It's a fantastic day for the city and I'm hoping, you know, for decades on, everybody will get to experience the NHL and the economic impact and the wonderful pride that comes with being a city that has the best of the best," said Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz.

While the NHL's return will have obvious economic benefits, that's not all it offers, he said.

"One thing that you can't measure is the feeling, the wonderful feeling that Winnipeggers and Manitobans will have today with the return of the NHL after a 15-year absence," Katz said.

Winnipeg has been without NHL hockey since the Jets moved to Phoenix and were renamed the Coyotes in 1996.

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A Winnipeg hockey fan wears a painted goalie mask as he celebrates the news Winnipeg is getting an NHL team on May 31. (Andrew Lee/CBC)

"In the spring of 1995, I was very fortunate to become closely involved in community efforts to save the NHL team. I came away from that experience with a deep sense of disappointment, but also the realization that our lack of success was not anyone's fault," Chipman said at the press conference.

"Rather, after 17 years [of hockey in Winnipeg], the economics of our city and the NHL were no longer compatible."

But all of that has changed now, with a stronger Canadian dollar, a new arena, a booming Manitoba economy and an NHL salary cap, say those involved in the deal and others, like Katz and Selinger.

"It is clear that times have changed for Winnipeg as an NHL market. And this is a wonderful time to add a club to Canada," said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.

Mayor Sam Katz and former Jet Thomas Steen lead the conga line at The Forks to celebrate the NHL's return to Winnipeg. (Marjorie Dowhos/CBC)

"As we have said repeatedly, we don't like to move franchises. But sometimes, even if it has been 14 years since the last time we moved a franchise, sometimes we simply have no choice as was the case back in '96 when the Jets left Winnipeg.

"So to be able to come back to, if you will, right a wrong, that's always an extraordinary thing. It's nice to be back in Winnipeg after all these years."

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-- CBC News materials posted by Sportikos