WINNIPEG – A decade and a half after Winnipeg’s National Hockey League team flew south, the Manitoba capital will once again host the best players in the world.
True North Sports and Entertainment announced Tuesday that it has purchased the Atlanta Thrashers from Atlanta Spirit and will move the team to Winnipeg’s MTS Centre, marking Canada’s seventh franchise.
True North and Atlanta Spirit have been in negotiations for weeks after the Atlanta-based group was unable to find any local investors.
Winnipeg hockey fans will now be cheering on the likes of Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd and Tobias Enstrom when the 2011-12 NHL season begins in October.
Thrashers players such as centre Bryan Little were positive when looking at the prospect of moving to Winnipeg to join Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto north of the border.
“Coming from Atlanta, where it’s pretty obvious hockey is not the biggest sport down there . . . some would argue (the Thrashers) aren’t even in the top five sports teams down there,” Little said recently during an interview with Toronto radio station FAN 590. “To go from that to possibly Winnipeg where all the focus is on you and you’re the No. 1 team, that’s pretty exciting.”
The True North ownership group is led by chairman Mark Chipman and media mogul David Thomson.
Winnipeg’s new franchise will pick up where the Jets left off when they moved to Phoenix in 1996.
The Jets joined the World Hockey Association in 1972 and won three Avco Cup titles between 1976 and ’79. After the WHA ceased operations following the ’79 season, the Jets were one of four teams to move into the NHL along with the Edmonton Oilers, New England Whalers and Quebec Nordiques. The Jets played 17 NHL seasons, making the playoffs 11 times. But the team only won one playoff series, over Calgary in 1984-85.
Rising player salaries, a slumping Canadian dollar and an antiquated arena all contributed to the Jets’ demise in ’96 when the team moved to Phoenix to become the Coyotes.
Winnipeg has more going for it this time around as the surging loonie offsets the fact NHL teams incur most of their expenses in U.S. dollars; the salary cap helps create a more level playing field and the MTS Centre features many modern arena amenities. The 15,000-seat facility built in 2004 is small by NHL standards but contains 46 private suites.
Rumours have been swirling for years that the MTS Centre would eventually host an NHL team. The Coyotes were the prime contender the past two years after former owner Jerry Moyes put the team in bankruptcy protection in May 2009. The NHL bought the Coyotes in October 2009 after a protracted legal battle with Research in Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie.
The league has vowed to sell the team, preferably to a person or group who wants to keep the team in Arizona, but negotiations have been slow. The City of Glendale, which owns Jobing.com Arena – the home of the Coyotes – has pledged to cover up to $50 million worth of the team’s losses while the sale process continues.
Politicians in Atlanta were not willing to make the same commitment, leaving the team vulnerable for relocation.
Other Thrashers, such as forward Chris Thorburn, were disappointed in Atlanta Spirit for giving up on the franchise.
“Just for owners to turn their backs on you, it kind of makes you mad,” Thorburn told FOX 5 TV in Atlanta. “Obviously we don’t know every aspect of the deal and where they’re coming from because it hasn’t been publicly noted in the paper. But from everything we’ve heard, from rumours that we’ve heard, it’s discouraging just knowing that they’re trying to dump us. That makes a guy mad.”
This is the second time Atlanta has lost an NHL team to a Canadian city. In 1980 the Flames moved north to Calgary after eight seasons in Georgia. The Thrashers had a slightly longer run, 11 seasons since they joined the league as an expansion team in 1999.
The Thrashers have only qualified for the post-season once – in 2006-07 – and have never won a playoff game.
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