Bitchfest With the Jets

Since the Jets 2.0 became part of the sports landscape in Winnipeg, the discourse between the team and fans and even the team and media has essentially been one big love fest. Understandable, when you consider the long history involved and the elation that erupted when the announcement of the NHL’s return was made in May. On the other hand, it’s also very unnatural in the world of sports where yesterday’s results are rendered irrelevant by your crappy result today. Terribly unnatural in this city where people seem to relish in complaining about anything and everything, especially the status of their local sports franchise.

While the status of the relationship was completely logical, I couldn’t help but wonder when this would come to a crashing halt. It had been suggested several times that the ‘honeymoon period’ would last as long as the entire first season, that fans and maybe the media, would cut the team some slack just because of the euphoria surrounding their arrival here. I was a skeptic.

Lo and behold my cynicism was well founded, as a smattering of restlessness at the arena, snarky comments via social media, written assaults from the traditional media and general ill will started slowly and then gained momentum.

This shouldn’t be a terribly big surprise to anyone. After all, people have a lot invested in their team, both in terms of an emotional tie and certainly the amount of money fans have anted up this time around. The enthusiasm related to the team’s arrival would eventually be separated from the performance of the team because they’re completely separate. Many fans will probably have low expectations, or say they do, and at least appear to be patient when it comes to the team’s results. It’s unlikely the media will be the same, since it is their job to cover the team and articles containing non-stop praise don’t sell papers. There were a number of articles in the Winnipeg Sun alone after their humbling loss to the lowly Columbus Blue Jackets, the worst team in the league, that didn’t mince words. Some examples: ‘Jets snapshots: Nothing nice to say’; ‘If that’s not rock bottom, the Winnipeg Jets don’t want to find out what is’, etc. etc. The comments posted are even better, with the usual advice to the coaches and management regarding on-ice defensive schemes, line combinations and defense pairings, as well as anything else they’ve ‘figured out’ that the coach or GM hasn’t.

During the first incarnation of the Jets a local radio station had a Sunday morning call-in show titled ‘Breakfast with the Jets’. We couldn’t help but refer to the show as ‘Bitchfest With the Jets’, owing to the tone of the program: a compliment followed 3 or 4 complaints repeated over and over. Fire the coach! Our goaltending is horrible. The hotdogs taste like crap. There were complaints about everything. Of course, the team and organization were consistently incompetent. Although I’m convinced the fans would fall back into that pattern again, here’s hoping they won’t have as much reason to with this team.

Up to now the fans have been almost entirely positive at the arena, even during their worst performances, but it’s only a matter of time until it’s no longer taboo to boo the team. The honeymoon’s been great but it’s almost check out time.