In 1995, the face of the “Save the Jets” campaign was an American forward who’d landed in Winnipeg, the third stop in an NHL career that spanned 15 years. Twice in that time, Eddie Olczyk played for the first iteration of the Winnipeg Jets.
Olczyk’s career included stops with many of the NHL’s major, historic franchises — Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and Toronto.
But he will also tell you that Winnipeg — the smallest of NHL markets — can get under your skin if you just give the city a chance. Passionate hockey fans. Genuine hockey climate. A great old barn, the Winnipeg Arena, where the Jets played, known especially for a massive portrait of Queen Elizabeth at one end of the arena.
Unhappily, it was that great old barn that was partly responsible for the Jets relocating from Winnipeg to Phoenix in the summer of 1996, a troubled time for all Canadian small-market teams.
On Tuesday, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman visited Winnipeg, where the Jets 2.0 are facing many of the same obstacles that contributed to the exodus of the original Jets, the ones that joined the NHL in 1979 as part of the World Hockey Association merger.
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But the primary difference between then and now is the building.
Winnipeg, under the ownership of Barry Shenkarow in 1996, was unable to get financing for a new building to replace the venerable, but aging Winnipeg Arena. Shenkarow didn’t have either the financial wherewithal or interest to do it on his own and getting government assistance at that time ultimately wasn’t achievable.
If there was one overriding factor that led to the original Jets’ departure, it was that an arena, one constructed in 1955, didn’t generate the necessary ancillary revenues, primarily through private suite sales, to compete financially in the NHL four decades later.
“The game became very big financially and unfortunately in Winnipeg, we weren’t able to sustain, or find ways to generate, the necessary revenue in that building,” Olczyk said. “That was a huge reason in dictating what eventually ended up happening. That’s what I remember most vividly.”
Today’s Jets play out of the Canada Life Centre, with a modest capacity of 15,225, which was constructed in 2004, originally to host an AHL team. When an ownership consortium led by David Thomson and Mark Chipman purchased the Atlanta Thrashers for $170 million and brought them to Winnipeg, it was with full knowledge that the arena was the smallest building in the league. (It has since moved up to No. 31, behind the Mullett Arena in Tempe, Ariz., the temporary home of the Coyotes).
But the size of the building was manageable in the early days of Jets 2.0 because they were sold out in their first seasons back in Winnipeg. If the Jets were to fill all those seats again today, they’d probably be OK. The building isn’t perfect, but for a market the size of Winnipeg, it has proven to be perfectly manageable.
According to Chipman, slumping paid attendance figures represent the largest obstacle to survival.
Much of Chipman’s lament sounded familiar to Olczyk, a popular national broadcaster on ESPN and regionally, with the Seattle Kraken, and someone who remains a big booster of Winnipeg hockey.
According to Olczyk, getting people into the seats that final season in Winnipeg was not the issue. The community rallied behind the club, knowing that this might be its last, best chance to watch NHL hockey.
Olczyk described the crowds as “awesome” but noted: “The problem was corporate. Corporate help is huge. The year before we left, we didn’t know if the team was staying or going. But then they had the ‘Save the Jets’ campaign, and the fans came out, so we knew we were coming back. There was even a feeling then that maybe we would be here long-term.
“But once we got into the season, more and more, it didn’t look good. Then, during the All-Star break, when we took the trip down to Arizona (to inspect housing and schools ahead of a possible relocation), it seemed like it was just a matter of time before it became official.”
The currency crisis
An ongoing issue, relevant to the Jets’ financial issues in both 1996 and 2024, has been the fluctuating Canadian dollar. Because Canadian teams earn most of their revenue in Canadian dollars but pay salaries in U.S. dollars, a slumping Canadian dollar undermines profitability.
In 1996, partly as a response to the exodus of both Winnipeg and Quebec City to the United States, the NHL introduced the Canadian Currency Assistance Plan, designed to mitigate the effects of a low Canadian dollar.
The program’s sponsor was Harley Hotchkiss, then the NHL’s chairman of the board and a member of the Calgary Flames’ ownership group. The program ran until just before the lockout in 2004-05, and most years, four teams — Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Vancouver — qualified for the subsidy, which was worth roughly around $2.7 million per team per year. Payouts were contingent on the teams selling at least 13,000 season tickets.
In discussing the Jets’ current plight, it’s easy to overlook how badly the Canadian dollar has slipped since the move from Atlanta in 2011.
On the day the Thrashers were sold to the Jets, it was trading at a robust 96.86 cents, according to Exchange-Rates.org. On the day the 2011 regular season opened, things were even better on the currency front. The Canadian dollar was briefly trading above par, $1.04, which greatly enhanced profitably in the early days.
Unhappily for the Jets, the Canadian dollar has slumped considerably since then and as of this week was trading at $0.73.
It means the Jets have not only lost 25 percent of their original season ticket base — down from 13,000 to 9,500, by Chipman’s estimate — but they’ve also lost an additional 25 percent of their revenue compared to 2011, based on the drop in the Canadian dollar.
In effect, it is this double financial whammy that has led the Jets to where they are today.
“It just seems like, all of a sudden, it’s filtering back to the same problems and issues and obstacles that were happening in the mid-1990s. It’s just kind of crazy,” Olczyk said.
So wasn’t the NHL lockout supposed to solve these issues?
In 1996, the NHL was operating without a salary cap, or “cost certainty” as Bettman used to call it when he was fighting the players’ association for a hard cap.
At a board of governors meeting in December 2001, Bettman warned, not for the first time and not for the last, that the league needed to negotiate with the PA a financial system, “That addresses — long term — all the economic issues that we have so that all of our clubs can be competitive and economically viable where they are currently located.”
Eventually, as the players’ association pushed back on a cap system, the NHL locked them out and kept them out for a full year, which was the first time a North American professional sports league sacrificed a full season to pursue a labor agreement. Ultimately, the two sides came to an agreement on a salary-cap system, which among other things included a revenue-sharing provision designed to support smaller markets, such as Winnipeg.
In theory, that salary-cap system was supposed to ensure that every team could survive in its current market.
It’s something Bettman has made a priority throughout his tenure, especially as it relates to the Arizona Coyotes, who have been the biggest drain on the league’s overall finances since the salary-cap system was introduced.
It remains to be seen if the current system, which was supposed to give every team a chance to be financially viable, will prove to be enough to save the Jets this time around.
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Rising ticket prices
The often-unspoken elephant in the room is cost. Olczyk is from a blue-collar background and thus understands that NHL tickets are expensive and that even if people may want to go to an NHL game, not everyone can afford to go or if they can, they can do so only on a limited basis.
“It is expensive,” Olczyk said. “Everything’s expensive from gas to groceries to schooling to kids’ programs. Whether it’s recreational or educational, there is a line. There’s only so much of the pie to go around. A lot of families would like to take a five-or-10 game package, but maybe they can only do two or three. You’ve got to make decisions.”
Olczyk eventually did see a successful save-the-franchise moment occur in Pittsburgh. When he joined the organization as the Penguins’ coach in 2003, the team was on financial life support. Just as he once was the Jets’ biggest cheerleader, he took on that role again with the Penguins. Olczyk coached the Penguins for 113 games – 82 before the 2004-05 lockout and 31 after, during some of that organization’s most troubled times.
“I was glad they were able to stabilize it in Pittsburgh and get a building and to see the success they’ve had over the years,” Olczyk said. “But the threat of leaving was certainly there and I lived it twice. Once as a player in Winnipeg. And once as a coach in Pittsburgh.”
Meanwhile, the video clip of an enthusiastic Olczyk during the Jets’ farewell to the city — cheerleading for the return of the Jets at some point — lives on as a staple on YouTube. Olczyk says two of his best friends in hockey, Glenn Healy and Ray Ferraro, tease him about it constantly.
“I would say it again and do it again,” Olczyk said. “Because it was organic and said with a lot of passion and also with a heavy heart. When we were having the sendoff, it was very personal for a lot of us. We have developed a great attachment to the community and made a lot of friends there.
“Did I ever think the NHL was coming back to Winnipeg? Yes, I did. I felt there might be a correction and that someone like Mr. Thomson and Mark’s group would get the Jets back. I loved it there. I love it still. I know forever is a long time, but that would be awesome — to know the Jets are where they are supposed to be.
“I just hope they can figure this out.”
(Top photo of Eddie Olczyk with the Winnipeg Jets: Focus on Sport / Getty Images)
