Great GDT,
@Ponds
When I was younger, my Mom worked midnights at Canada Post and my Dad was in school at Red River so we couldn't go to a lot of Jets 1.0 games. I do remember we went to see the first game that Selanne played the Jets as an Anaheim Mighty Duck so that was pretty great. It was the only game I can actively remember seeing, since I was only 7 years old at the time.
When the Jets came back, we managed to get four half season tickets in Section 325 for my Dad, my Uncle, my Brother, and myself. Now that I live in Calgary, I realize just how special that was and what a huge role in my life the Jets have played.
Whenever I think about most of the things I've done with my Dad in the past 13 years, the Jets have somehow been involved whether it was watching them at McPhillips Station, watching them at one of our houses, going to the games, or even travelling to see them in almost all of the Western Conference away arenas. Now that I live in Calgary, we text during the games, he sends pictures of him and his wife at the game in our seats, and when we talk each day we always discuss the latest goings on with the team.
My Uncle was kind of a recluse so going to the Jets games with him provided us a great opportunity to see him regularly. He was such a great guy and nobody had anything bad to say about him. Unfortunately he died of ALS so I will always love the time that we got to spend together because of the Jets. When he died, both the Jets and Salisbury House (he went to the Court of St James location every single day from 1978 onward) both gave donations to the ALS Society of Manitoba in his name.
The Jets are more than a hockey team to me because of those memories, they are a central figure in most of the things that I can remember in the past fifteen years. Uncle Pat's diagnosis quickly prevented him from going to the first Jets playoff games because walking up the steep steps became too much for him with ALS. By the time the next season began, he was in a wheelchair and in and out of the hospital. He died four months later.
So you see what I mean that I am able to remember large swathes of the past 13 years through the Jets.
I think we all love this team in a way that extends far beyond the hockey element of it.
I know I do.
