WINNIPEG – It was a day to dig deep in the closet and dust off a sweater that had grown small over the years.
Hawerchuk. Tkachuk. Kyte. Essensa. Selanne.
You could even spot some snug Gretzkys and Kurris and Messiers during the walk up to Investors Group Field on a perfect Saturday afternoon for hockey. It was unseasonably warm at 11 degrees Celsius when the puck was dropped, and not too sunny, as a group of former Winnipeg Jets and Edmonton Oilers took us on a trip through memory lane.
“There was nothing negative at all about the day,” Wayne Gretzky said afterwards.
In this case, that even included the ending.
Teemu Selanne lifted the Jets to a 6-5 victory by beating Curtis Joseph on a penalty shot with just seconds remaining. That made it a five-point game for the Finnish Flash, who received the loudest cheers one day after he received the key to Winnipeg.
“The game ended the way it should end: With the best player on the ice on the home team scoring a goal,” said Gretzky.
“It was really special,” said Selanne. “And I knew [I was] going to score, too, so it’s a good feeling.”
The result was really besides the point, of course.
This was basically a celebration; of the sport, and of some of the men who created memories here that have lasted decades. It was quite something to see all of the old sweaters mixed in among the trendier Laines and McDavids in the stands.
The players could hardly believe the scene when they walked out to the field where the Winnipeg Blue Bombers usually play. They were greeted by a near-full house and loud chants of “Let’s go Jets!”
The line of Selanne, Dale Hawerchuk and Kris King did most of the damage for Winnipeg.
Oilers forward Mark Messier, now 55, looked like he might have found the fountain of youth.
As for Gretzky? Well, the NHL’s all-time leading scorer hardly plays anymore and delivered on his pre-game promise of no heroics.
“I stink,” said Gretzky. “I’m really bad. At least I forewarned people. Mark went down and he snapped that first goal, and then he went down and snapped the second one and I was like ‘Oh my god he can still play.’
“Nobody’s thinking that about Wayne Gretzky.”
He still had a couple moments. There was a no-look pass to Paul Coffey in the first period that offered a reminder that his hockey sense hasn’t disappeared over the years.
“It was a beautiful pass, it was a glimpse of 1982,” said Coffey.
“Did you see me there or was that one of those eyes in the back of your head passes?” Coffey then asked Gretzky, while sitting at a podium in front of reporters.
“I saw you in the glass,” Gretzky replied.
How cool is that?
The level of competition went up as the final buzzer neared. Oilers winger Craig Simpson – now the lead analyst on Hockey Night in Canada – tripped Selanne in the offensive zone to set up the game-winning penalty shot.
Asked how he thought broadcast partner Jim Hughson might have described the play for TV viewers, he replied: “I hope he was calling it the way he saw it.”
“That’s a bad hockey play, for sure, because I would have called it the same way,” said Simpson. “It’s another example of what fatigue does to your brain in those times.”
The entire spectacle was a reminder of days gone by, complete with a picture of Queen Elizabeth II on the scoreboard that looked like the one that used to hang in Winnipeg Arena.
Back in the ‘80s, the Oilers almost always got the best of these matchups. They beat the Jets in the playoffs on the way to winning each of their five Stanley Cups – memories that remain among the players to this day.
“They’re walking around with Stanley Cup rings, right?” said Winnipeg defenceman Jim Kyte. “You play to win, you play to win a Stanley Cup and I’m very envious whenever I go to an alumni event and I see the guys wearing a ring.
“Yeah, I guess we have bragging rights for a little while (after winning today) but certainly what really counted is what happened 20 years ago.”
This? This was just some good old fun.
The players were beaming in the dressing room as they sat in their stalls afterwards, drinking beer and going over the game.
“It was a long way from my first shift in the old Winnipeg Arena as a 17-year-old playing for the Indianapolis Racers and coming here I don’t know how many years later and seeing where hockey’s come,” said Messier. “To be able to fill an arena like this for players that are long past their prime, it’s just a testament to the people.”
Winnipeg is the NHL’s smallest market, but also its most proud.
Before the franchise was reborn in 2011 there were concerns about selling enough tickets. Here we had more than 31,000 fans – almost all of them in sweaters – making a football stadium shake.
It was quite a scene, and quite a day.
