It's official. The National Hockey League and the Winnipeg Jets have announced that the 2016 NHL Heritage Classic will be played at Investor's Grpup Field in Winnipeg on October 23. Their opponents will be the Jets historical rivals, the Edmonton Oilers. The alumni game featuring past stars of both teams will be played the day before on Oct. 22. Both teams will announce their rosters for the alumni game later on in the summer. The Jets will be captain by former Jets great and Hall of Famer Dale Hawerchuck, while the Oilers will be led by the NHL's all-time leading scorer, Wayne Gretzky.
I for one will be looking forward to both games as a life-long Jets fan. Not only because it's the Jets first regular season outdoor NHL game, but the alumni game will have the great Teemu Selanne lacing up for the Jets one final time. It will be such a rush to see the Finnish Flash don the Jets colours one more time since he was unceremoniously traded to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 1996 and never did get his proper send off from Winnipeg.
However, I am prepared to witness yet another loss at the hands of the hated Oilers. Not the regular game, but the alumni game. From 1983 throughout various times until 1990, the Winnipeg Jets and Edmonton Oilers played a total of six playoff series with the Jets winning exactly zero of those series. That's right, six times the Jets and Oilers met in the NHL playoffs and six times the Oilers defeated the Jets. In fact, I believe the Jets of old only managed to win a grand total of four games in those six series. Four games! In contrast they lost 18! The first three of those series were sweeps by the way. So what makes me think we should fare any better when the alumni Oilers are going to ice the exact same players that skinned the Jets alive every time we met in the playoffs (not to mention a regular-season eighteen-game winless streak of the Jets against the Oilers between 1984 and 1986? Nothing. I expect to lose that Saturday afternoon game. Unless the fix is in and the Jets are "supposed" to win the game "for the fans." I doubt it and it would just make my stomach turn to find later on that to be true, but you never know with Gary Bettman and his cronies.
One more thing. It's probably a really good thing the league scheduled the game in October near the beginning of the season and not in the middle or near the end of it. Could you imagine an outdoor NHL game in Winnipeg anytime between December and February? Brrrrr.
