Jets’ New Rivalry No Mirage at LinesMaker

Jets’ New Rivalry No Mirage

Who says it’s tough to get Win­nipeg Jets tickets?

A few clicks of the mouse late Fri­day after­noon revealed hun­dreds still avail­able, as good as right behind the vis­i­tors bench and as cheap as $ 17.

Of course, you’ll have to fly to Phoenix, as the new Win­nipeg Jets take on the old Win­nipeg Jets, Sat­ur­day night.

Dou­ble the fun, you might say — for half the money.

It’s the Phoenix Coy­otes home opener, and, yes, great seats are still avail­able, either through the online “bro­kers”, where the best one might go for $ 65, or through the Coy­otes offi­cial web­site, where they’ll try to soak you to the tune of $ 205 for that seat behind the ‘Yotes bench, $ 245 for one against the glass.

Hard to tell who’s the scalper in this one.

It’s also hard to tell what this game will mean in the grand scheme of things.

Two teams with plenty of his­tory, some of it shared, but no his­tory against each other.

The last time a team from Win­nipeg faced one from Phoenix, the south­ern one was called the Road­run­ners, and nei­ther were in the NHL.

If you think that sounds bush league, it’s not much deeper into the tan­gle than the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, in which the NHL itself con­tin­ues to own the Coy­otes, while a hand­ful of politi­cians in Glen­dale stick tax­pay­ers with the finan­cial feces.

It’s an arrange­ment the league waded into out of des­per­a­tion, and for one sea­son, only, we were told. One became two, after which Coy­otes brass said enough was enough.

I can still see head coach Dave Tip­pett fig­u­ra­tively throw­ing up his hands after his rud­der­less team was swept from the play­offs by Detroit last April.

“There has to be some kind of solu­tion,” Tip­pett said that day. “Every­body sees that. Gary Bettman sees that. (GM) Don Mal­oney sees that. We need some kind of direc­tion, here.”

Nearly six months later, and Sea­son 3 of this bad soap opera is well into production.

One of the stars, Winnipeg-bashing goalie Ilya Bryz­galov, got tired of the script and bolted for Philly, where there’s an actual owner with an actual wal­let in an actual pocket.

In Phoenix, the NHL sets the bud­get, Glendale’s $ 20-million limit its guid­ing prin­ci­ple. At the same time, the league works poten­tial buy­ers like a call-girl work­ing the street.

The Coy­otes are hockey’s south­ern siren, would-be own­ers com­ing and going in the desert night, but nobody stick­ing around for any kind of commitment.

Or maybe a peepshow would be a more appro­pri­ate descrip­tion for this fran­chise — worth a quick look, but unable to attract any real money.

Kind of like a typ­i­cal Coy­otes home game.

The mood at the Jobing.com Arena, Sat­ur­day, should be an inter­est­ing mix of Phoenix fans eager to heap deri­sion on the Jets, and by exten­sion, the peo­ple of Win­nipeg, who almost stole their team last spring, and Win­nipeg­gers tak­ing advan­tage of an easy chance to see the Jets in a build­ing that’s almost never full.

No doubt the league saw a chance to sell a few more tick­ets with this matchup, maybe sow the seeds of a rivalry.

One of just three West­ern Con­fer­ence teams the Jets face twice this sea­son, the Coy­otes will return the favour by vis­it­ing the ‘Peg, Dec. 1.

But build­ing a rivalry takes one of two things: a heated play­off series, or time.

The for­mer won’t hap­pen until the Jets relo­cate to the West, not to men­tion locate their game.

And the Coy­otes might not have the latter.

If this is the last home opener for the old Jets, per­haps it’s fit­ting they enter­tain the new Jets.

And keep those ticket stubs, fans.

They might be worth more in 20 years than they are today.

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