Winnipeg Expected to announce 'Jets' name before draft pick...

Image via WikipediaTSN.CA is reporting that the Winnipeg team will now be called the Jets. I believe that this is the right move, nice to see the Jets back in Winnipeg, Manitoba where they belong. Claude Noel has also been name head coach of the Winnipeg Jets, Noel was the head coach of the Manitoba Moose.

It looks like the Winnipeg Jets are cleared for landing.

The team, which is expected to officially announce their name before making the 7th overall pick in tonight's NHL Entry Draft, is reportedly going to go with the very popular Jets nickname.

You can watch the Draft live on TSN, TSN.ca and TSN Mobile TV tonight at 7pm et/4pm pt. Make sure to check out TSN.ca for a live hockey blog with TSN Analyst Craig Button, beginning at 6:30 pm et/3:30 pm pt.

After an explosive Thursday that watched big name players get moved, Friday could be just as volatile as the NHL Entry Draft goes tonight in Minnesota.

Winnipeg group schedules news conference to announce NHL franchise acquisition

Today is a good day for the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba. I had said in the past that the NHL would be making a come back in Winnipeg it was just a matter of time and I had many readers of this blog say that it was never going to happen.

WINNIPEG - The waiting is over for Winnipeg hockey fans.

True North Sports and Entertainment has scheduled a news conference for noon ET at Winnipeg's MTS Centre to make "a significant community announcement."

True North has been in negotiations with the owners of the Atlanta Thrashers to buy the NHL team and move it to Winnipeg.

Winnipeg has been without NHL hockey since the Jets moved to Phoenix in 1996.

Atlanta is saying goodbye to an NHL franchise for the second time. The Flames moved from Atlanta to Calgary in 1980.

The NHL was unable to find an owner who wants to keep the team in Atlanta.

The MTS Centre has been home to the American Hockey league's Manitoba Moose. Both the team and arena are owned by True North, whose ownership includes Canadian billionaire David Thomson.

True North Sports was founded by chairman Mark Chipman.

Chipman is president and chief executive of Winnipeg-based Megill Stephenson Co. Ltd. and director of the Hockey Canada Foundation.

Opened in 2004 with the Moose, the farm team for the NHL's Vancouver Canucks, as its anchor tenant, the 15,000-seat MTS Centre cost $133.5 million to build, including $40.5 million in public money.

The arena is small by NHL standards with 15,015 seats _ that's 1,159 fewer than Nassau Coliseum, where the New York Islanders play.

Atlanta finished 25th in the 30-team league with a 34-36-12 record and missed the playoffs last season.

It's been a long wait for Winnipeg fans.

Jet diehards kept the spirit of the team alive on websites and chatrooms, lobbying for a team and keeping track of Jets alumni like Bobby Hull, Thomas Steen and Dale Hawerchuk.

Earlier this year it appeared Winnipeg was about to get its own franchise back, but last-minute subsidies and deal-making kept the red-ink-stained Coyotes in Arizona

But just as the Coyote door closed, the Thrasher one opened.

Related articles

• Winnipeg group schedules news conference to announce NHL franchise acquisition (thehockeynews.com)
• Expect Winnipeg to welcome NHL today at noon (thestar.com)
• Winnipeg cheers return of NHL (cbc.ca)
• True North set to announce Winnipeg NHL deal (cbc.ca)
• NHL team on way to Winnipeg (cbc.ca)

So are the Thrashing moving to Winnipeg?

Image via WikipediaThere seems to be a buzz around the "Internet" that the Atlanta Thrashers are going to be moving to Winnipeg, I know we have seen and heard this story before but this time it sounds like this might actually be true. Of course Gary Bettman denies that there is a deal in place to sell the Thrashers to True North, which would in turn relocate the team from Atlanta to Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Here is the link to the interview that was on Sports Radio 1290 A.M. CFRW out of Winnipeg, Manitoba. [Click to listen]

Stephen Brunt; Globe and Mail ---- An agreement to sell the National Hockey League’s Atlanta Thrashers to a Winnipeg group which plans to relocate the franchise to the Manitoba capital is done.

Sources confirmed tonight that preparations are being made for an announcement Tuesday, confirming the sale and transfer of the Thrashers to True North Sports and Entertainment, which owns and operates the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League and the MTS Centre arena, which would become the NHL team’s new home.

Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the National Hockey League, is expected to travel to Winnipeg to make the news official.

The announcement would end months of speculation about whether one of the NHL’s financially-troubled American sunbelt teams might move north, filling the void left when the Winnipeg Jets packed up and left for Phoenix in 1996, where they became the Coyotes.

Much of the talk this spring had centred on that failing franchise, which was bought by the league after being placed in bankruptcy by its former owner Jerry Moyes in 2009.

But sources in Winnipeg suggest that the Thrashers had in fact been the primary target of potential owners Mark Chipman and David Thomson all along, and that some months back, the NHL board of governors quietly approved the sale and transfer of the team, pending the negotiation of a purchase agreement between Atlanta Spirit LLC, the Thrashers’ owners, and True North.

In the meantime, no potential owner materialized who was prepared to keep the team in Georgia, and local governments there showed no interest in propping up the Thrashers.

“There seems to be a consensus there is going to be a team in Winnpeg,” former major league pitcher Tom Glavine, who had tried unsuccessfully to find new ownership for the hockey team in Atlanta, acknowledged last week. ““The question is who, and unfortunately the bullseye seems to be on the Thrashers’ back.”

What about Manitoba Moose?

Image via WikipediaHere is the latest in the NHL to Winnipeg saga. I don't know, personally I have always like the Moose Logo, it's fitting for that area because there are lot moose running around the Canadian Prairies and Midwest. Moose are indigenous to that area.

James Mirtle, Globe and Mail Blog --- What if the long-awaited Return of the Jets really wasn't the return of the Jets at all?

Amid all of the talk of the NHL's return to Winnipeg this s pring, there's also long been the suggestion that True North Sports & Entertainment would not bring back the Jets but instead "promote" their AHL franchise, the Manitoba Moose, to the big leagues.

Which would mean keeping the Moose logo, colours and uniforms.

The latest to report on this was sportslogos.net, quoting "a reliable source" within True North.
“True North has spent considerable time and money promoting the Moose brand, switching away from that would be like essentially flushing money down the toilet,” the source said.

You have to imagine there'll be some resistance to this move, as there's a great deal of nostalgia still associated with the Winnipeg Jets brand, 15 years after they originally left Manitoba.

That trademark is apparently still owned by the NHL and would presumably be easy to acquire, but all indications are True North would go against public sentiment and stick with their brand.