48 Fun Facts About Winnipeg Jets

The team that moved to Winnipeg in 2011 and became the Jets had played under what name?

Atlanta Thrashers reached the playoffs once in Georgia and lost all four games; in 2026 the NHL folded their records and the original Jets' into a single franchise history.

Which league granted Winnipeg a founding franchise in December 1971?

World Hockey Association teams lured dozens of NHL players with bigger salaries; when the rebel league folded in 1979, the Jets were one of four clubs the NHL absorbed.

Whose giant portrait hung from the rafters above the original Jets at Winnipeg Arena?

Queen Elizabeth II looked down from a painting so large it made a target: Jets players were known to fire pucks at it in practice, and it came down ahead of the 1999 Pan Am Games.

Which NHL star jumped to the Jets in June 1972 with a record $1 million signing bonus?

Bobby Hull's bonus was partly paid by the WHA's other teams, because landing the NHL's leading active goal-scorer gave the whole league instant credibility; 67 NHL players jumped in its first year.

Which two Swedes joined the Golden Jet on the Winnipeg Jets' famous 'Hot Line'?

Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson arrived from Sweden in 1974 and dazzled for four seasons, until the New York Rangers signed both of them away together in 1978.

Whom did the Jets beat 5-3 in a celebrated January 1978 exhibition?

The Soviet Union national team, the power of international hockey, lost to a club built around Swedish and Finnish imports; the Jets went on to win the WHA title again that spring.

Whom did the reborn Jets take with their first draft pick, seventh overall in 2011?

Mark Scheifele played only eleven NHL games across his first two seasons, twice being sent back to junior hockey in Barrie, before becoming the Jets' top centre for more than a decade.

Whom did the Jets draft first overall in 1981?

Dale Hawerchuk scored 103 points as an 18-year-old rookie and lifted the Jets from 32 points to 80, at the time the biggest one-season turnaround in NHL history.

Which team eliminated the Jets in all six of their playoff meetings between 1983 and 1990?

Edmonton Oilers lost just four games to Winnipeg across those six series, three of them in 1990, and went on to lift the Stanley Cup in five of the six springs.

Which Jets fan tradition was born in the 1987 playoffs as an answer to Calgary's 'C of Red'?

The Winnipeg Whiteout began with a request that fans wear white to home playoff games; the Jets beat the Flames in six, and the crowd has dressed that way every postseason since.

Which rookie scored 76 goals for the Jets in 1992-93, a first-year record that still stands?

Teemu Selanne beat Mike Bossy's rookie record of 53 by 23 goals; the Jets had waited four years for him, having drafted him 10th overall in 1988 while he stayed in Finland.

Which group of local businessmen tried and failed to buy the Jets and keep them in Winnipeg in 1995?

Spirit of Manitoba looked set to buy the team once the public had raised about $13 million, but the group fell short of cash; all the effort bought Winnipeg was one farewell season.

Where did buyers Steven Gluckstern and Richard Burke first plan to move the Jets before settling on Phoenix?

Minneapolis-Saint Paul had lost its own NHL team to Dallas two years earlier, but the buyers could not agree terms for an arena there, so they struck a deal in Arizona instead.

From which state did the IHL club that became the Manitoba Moose relocate in 1996?

Minnesota: the Moose had played only two seasons there before local buyers moved them north, giving Winnipeg a new pro team within months of the Jets' departure.

Which 1995 first-round pick was the last original Jet still active in the NHL when he retired in 2017?

Shane Doan played his rookie season in Winnipeg, moved with the team to Phoenix and stayed for two more decades, the last 13 seasons as the Coyotes' captain.

Whose number 25 did the original Jets retire after his whole NHL career in Winnipeg?

Thomas Steen played all 14 of his NHL seasons for the Jets; his son Alexander, born in Winnipeg during that run, went on to win the Stanley Cup with St. Louis in 2019.

Which team did True North come within minutes of buying in 2010, a year before the NHL returned to Winnipeg?

Phoenix Coyotes, the original Jets under another name: the league had even drafted a schedule with Winnipeg in it before an Arizona city council stepped in with a subsidy.

Which True North chairman brought the Moose, then the NHL, to Winnipeg?

Mark Chipman, from a family of Winnipeg car dealers, kept pro hockey in the city with a minor-league team, built a downtown arena for it, then spent years courting the NHL.

About how long did Jets season tickets take to sell out when public sales opened in June 2011?

17 minutes was all the public sale needed; the waiting list that opened afterwards had to be capped at 8,000 names within two hours.

When the NHL returned in 2011, True North moved its AHL team to which city for four seasons?

St. John's hosted the club as the IceCaps until 2015, when True North brought it home again to share the Jets' arena under its old Manitoba Moose name.

Besides Manitoba Moose, which other name did True North weigh for the returning NHL team before choosing Jets?

Falcons was weighed alongside Manitoba Moose, the name said to be favoured inside True North, but public support for the old Jets name proved too strong to ignore.

Where was the 'Winnipeg Jets' name finally revealed in June 2011?

At the NHL entry draft in Saint Paul, the secret came out mid-sentence: the team's chairman called his general manager up to 'make our first pick, on behalf of the Winnipeg Jets'.

Which goaltender started for the Jets in their 2011 home opener, the NHL's return to Winnipeg?

Ondrej Pavelec made the start a year and a day after he fainted in the opening minutes of his team's 2010 home opener, hit his head on the ice and left on a stretcher.

Who scored the first goal for the relocated Jets, in October 2011?

Nik Antropov scored early in the third period of the home opener, the only goal the sellout crowd got to cheer in a 5-1 loss to Montreal.

Which Manitoba Moose coach became the new Jets' first head coach?

Claude Noel had coached the Moose for just one season when the NHL arrived; he got the job after the incumbent coach was let go, and held it until Paul Maurice replaced him in January 2014.

Which team swept the Jets in 2015 in Winnipeg's first NHL playoff series since 1996?

Anaheim Ducks won the first three games after trailing at the second intermission each time, then finished the sweep in Winnipeg's first home playoff games in 19 years.

Whom did the Jets select second overall in 2016 after winning the lottery with the sixth-worst record?

Patrik Laine scored 36 goals as a rookie; less than five years later the Jets traded him to Columbus for Pierre-Luc Dubois, the player chosen right after him in that draft.

Whom did the Jets beat in April 2018 for Winnipeg's first playoff series win in 31 years?

Minnesota Wild were shut out 5-0 in the clinching Game 5; the club that came from Atlanta had never won a single playoff game before that series began.

Which Presidents' Trophy winner did the Jets beat in seven games to reach the 2018 conference finals?

Nashville Predators lost the deciding game 5-1 on their own ice; home advantage counted for little in that series, with the visiting team winning five of the seven games.

Which team swept the Jets in the 2021 second round after Winnipeg swept Edmonton?

Montreal Canadiens rode the sweep all the way to the Stanley Cup Final; the series turned in Game 1, when the Jets' top centre drew a four-game suspension for a late charge.

Which Jets captain was stripped of the 'C' before the 2022-23 season?

Blake Wheeler lost the letter after six seasons when the Jets chose to open the year with no captain at all; the club bought out his contract the following summer.

Which first-year head coach led the Jets to a league-best 116 points in 2024-25?

Scott Arniel took over when his predecessor retired; he already knew the city, having been drafted by the original Jets in 1981 and played six seasons for them.

The Jets logo unveiled in 2011 is patterned after the roundels of which organisation?

Royal Canadian Air Force roundels shaped the crest after a military tribute night staged by the Moose in 2008 drew a warm response; the jet at its centre is a CF-18 Hornet, pointing north.

Whose permission did the Jets need before adding Canada's national emblem to their 2011 logo?

Toronto Maple Leafs gave their blessing for the red leaf behind the jet; the crest then had to be unveiled days early, after thieves broke into merchandise containers and a T-shirt photo leaked.

Paul Maurice resigned as Jets coach in December 2021 and later won back-to-back Stanley Cups with which team?

Florida Panthers hired him six months after he stepped down in Winnipeg; he reached the final in each of his first three seasons there and won it in 2024 and 2025.

Which enforcer set the Jets' single-season penalty-minute record with 347 in 1993-94?

Tie Domi had come from the New York Rangers the season before; Toronto, the team that had drafted and then traded him away, dealt to get him back in 1995 and kept him for 11 years.

Which Jets defenceman signed a five-year, $38 million extension in 2016 but walked away from hockey in 2019?

Dustin Byfuglien was granted personal leave weeks before the 2019-20 season and never played again; he and the Jets agreed to tear up the contract the following April.

Canada Life Centre was built on the site of which landmark department store?

Eaton's 'Big Store' was demolished in 2002 after an emotional civic fight that included protesters giving the building a 'group hug'; red bricks in the arena's facade recall it.

Under what name did the Jets' arena open in 2004?

MTS Centre was named for Manitoba's telephone company; a takeover of that company turned it into Bell MTS Place in 2017, and an insurer's name went up in 2021.

Which Jets winger won the Lady Byng Trophy in 2022 after a 47-goal season?

Kyle Connor took just two minor penalties all season, four minutes in 79 games, while scoring those 47 goals; the trophy rewards sportsmanship combined with a high standard of play.

Connor Hellebuyck backstopped which college to the 2013 Frozen Four as a freshman?

UMass Lowell won 38 games with him in net over two seasons; only a year before he arrived, he had been playing junior hockey in Texas for the Odessa Jackalopes.

Which Jets captain signed a $17 million offer sheet from Chicago in 1995, only for Winnipeg to match it within hours?

Keith Tkachuk got his money but lost the captaincy over the dispute, then answered with 50 goals and 98 points in what proved to be the Jets' last season in Winnipeg.

Besides the Vezina, which award did Connor Hellebuyck win in 2025?

Hart Memorial Trophy voters made him the first goaltender named league MVP since Carey Price a decade earlier; family and friends sprang the news on him during a day's fishing.

The Jets won the WHA's last championship in 1979 against a team led by which 18-year-old star?

Wayne Gretzky and his team lost the final in six games, and the last goal in WHA history was scored not by the teenage star but by his enforcer teammate Dave Semenko.

Which Jets forward was appointed team captain before the 2023-24 season?

Adam Lowry followed his father into a captaincy: Dave Lowry wore the 'C' in Calgary two decades earlier, and had coached the Jets himself for part of the 2021-22 season.

Which player gave up number 10 when the team moved to Winnipeg in 2011, out of respect for an original Jets star?

Bryan Little switched to 18 as a gesture of respect; a teammate went the other way that summer, seeking a Hall of Famer's blessing to wear a number the old Jets had retired.

Which general manager did True North hire in June 2011, four days after buying out Rick Dudley?

Kevin Cheveldayoff was a first-round draft pick whose knee gave out before he played an NHL game; he rebuilt his career in the front office, winning four minor-league titles with the Chicago Wolves.

Which team beat the Jets in the 2025 second round after Winnipeg outlasted St. Louis in seven games?

Dallas Stars ended it with a 2-1 overtime win in Game 6, closing a season in which the Jets had finished first in the whole league for the first time.