Live From Winnipeg: Jets-Penguins Review

My friend Christian and I are attempting to attend a National Hockey League game in every city with a team. While our annual hockey road trips haven’t been as annual lately (thanks to kids and Covid), we’re closing in on our goal. This year, joined by our friend Jason, we visited Winnipeg along with North Dakota. I already wrote about our dining experience in Winnipeg and will write a separate post about being a tourist in Winnipeg, our time in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and how we confused both American and Canadian border agents. This post focuses on the Winnipeg Jets-Pittsburgh Penguins hockey game. Please note that there are plenty of non-hockey related items, so please continue reading even if you’re not a hockey fan.

Let’s start with scheduling this trip. Our initial idea was to attend a Jets game as well as a University of North Dakota hockey game. Unfortunately, the timing didn’t work out for a UND hockey game though we did incorporate a visit to a University of North Dakota football game instead. Because why wouldn't you go to a UND football game when you have the chance? Fortunately, the timing matched up with seeing the Jets face my hometown team, the Pittsburgh Penguins. I figured out that it's been over a decade since I attended my last Penguins game. In the pre and early Alexander Ovechkin era in Washington, it was really easy to get tickets to Pens-Caps games. That changed when the Caps started being good, and ticket prices got a lot more expensive. And while I go back to Pittsburgh at least once or twice a year, I haven't been to PPG Paints Arena, except to see the Harlem Globetrotters. This is a long way of writing that I was very excited to see Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in person again.

Trying to be a gracious tourist, I didn't want to walk around Winnipeg and the arena wearing Penguins gear. However, I wanted to show that I am from Pittsburgh for people who might understand.

Even though there were a lot more people in Penguins gear than I expected (I forgot that Crosby is a national hero in Canada), exactly zero people commented on my shirt. 

Going with the Jets (and Top Gun) theme, I liked that the home team hits the ice to Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins.

That's Kenny Loggins!

For no apparent reason, the Jets have two mascots. The first is Benny, who served as the team's mascot in the 80s and 90s before the team moved to Arizona and is now the secondary mascot. Benny is named for the former team owner Ben Hatskin and for the song Bennie and the Jets because nothing represents Sir Elton John's longstanding ties to Winnipeg like a blue mascot with a giant red nose and mohawk.

The second mascot is Mick E. Moose, which may be one of the worst names in mascot history and seems like a Disney lawsuit waiting to happen. The silhouette of Mick E. visiting our section might give you nightmares!

When the Jets score a goal, the arena blasts Takin' Care Of Business by Bachman-Turner Overdrive (along with the goal horn). Fun fact: the band is from Winnipeg, so this song makes perfect sense. The mascot really should be called BTO rather than Benny. Anyway, after the initial playing of the song, the arena staff figure out who scored the goal, and each player has their own individual song. It's a very cool idea that I haven't seen before. While one player had your standard AC/DC goal celebration song and the others weren't very memorable, Adam Lowry's goal song is Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter which is certainly a choice. 

The Jets have a house band called Mach 10 that perform between periods. At one point during one of their sets, the lead singer announced that they were going to play a song that is a fan-favorite and represents Winnipeg. Was it a BTO song? Bennie and the Jets? If you guessed Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer, you win!

I appreciate Winnipeg making me and others from Pittsburgh feel like home.

Mid-way through the second period, a chant of "Where is Rutger?" emerged throughout the entire arena. Rutger McGroarty was the Jets 1st round draft pick in 2022. While I don't know the entire story, it seems that Rutger never wanted to play in Winnipeg, so the team traded him to the Penguins over the summer. The one thing you can't do as a player is say that you don't want to be there. Fans hate that more than anything else, so even those wearing Penguins gear joined the chant. I tried to answer the question by explaining that Rutger is currently in Wilkes Barre-Scranton, home of the Penguins top minor league affiliate, but no one seemed to acknowledge my response.

Before the game, the team had a nice tribute to forward Bryan Little who had one last pregame skate with the team. I didn't realize that Little played his last game in 2019 but only formally retired recently. He is a fan favorite in Winnipeg.

This is the best jersey I saw at the Canada Life Centre:

If you really want to see highlights from a game that occurred a month ago, please check out the video below. The game recap is here too. You might notice that Pittsburgh center Lars Eller had two goals for the Pens. I think he is a solid veteran that the Penguins would want to help the team win. (Sean's note: The Penguins traded Eller to the Washington Capitals last week, so never mind.)

A month after this game, the Penguins are near the bottom of the Eastern conference standings and like this game in Winnipeg, regularly lose leads. Meanwhile, the Jets are 16-3 with the best record in the league. If the Penguins aren't going to win the Stanley Cup, I'm going to support the Jets especially since I can say that I attended one of their games during their championship season. And here are a few more pictures.