The WHA years (1971–1979) Recruitment and first game was the first star of the WHA and Jets franchise, playing in every season for Winnipeg. On December 27, 1971, Winnipeg was granted one of the founding franchises in the
World Hockey Association (WHA). The original owner was
Ben Hatskin, a local figure who made his wealth in cardboard shipping containers. The team took their name from Hatskin's
Winnipeg Jets of the
Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL). The Jets' first signing was
Norm Beaudin in 1972 (earning the player the moniker of "the Original Jet").
Ab McDonald was the Jets' first captain. The first major signing was
Bobby Hull, with a record $1 million signing bonus. Hull played with the team until 1979. Hull's acquisition, partially financed by the rest of the WHA's teams, gave the league instant credibility and paved the way for other NHL stars to bolt to the upstart league. The Jets were the first North American club to seriously explore Europe as a source of ice hockey talent. Winnipeg's fortunes were bolstered by acquisitions such as Swedish forwards
Anders Hedberg and
Ulf Nilsson, who starred with Hull on the WHA's most famous and successful forward line (nicknamed "the Hot Line"), and defenceman
Lars-Erik Sjoberg, who would serve as the team's
captain and win accolades as the WHA's best defenceman. Behind these players and other European stars such as
Willy Lindstrom,
Kent Nilsson,
Veli-Pekka Ketola, leavened by players such as
Peter Sullivan, Norm Beaudin and goaltender
Joe Daley. Their European players had to adapt to a more violent style of play in Canada, in some cases speaking out against the style. The Jets' first game in the WHA was played against the New York Raiders on October 12, 1972, in
Madison Square Garden. Among members of the squad at that time were
Ab McDonald, Joe Daley, Dunc Rousseau, Duke Asmundson and Bill Sutherland. Team captain Ab McDonald scored the first goal of their WHA era. The team made the finals in five of the WHA's seven seasons, winning the
Avco World Trophy three times, including in the league's
final season against
Wayne Gretzky and the
Edmonton Oilers, with
Tom McVie as Jets' coach. Another notable accomplishment was the Jets' 5–3 victory over the
Soviet Union national team on January 5, 1978. In the WHA's last season, Kent Nilsson scored 107 points, while
Morris Lukowich had 65 goals, and Peter Sullivan had 46 goals and 86 points. During the 1979 Avco Cup Finals,
Gary Smith gave up the last goal in WHA history to
Dave Semenko in a 7–3 win against the Oilers. The
1975–76,
1977–78 and
1978–79 Avco Cup-winning Winnipeg Jets teams were inducted into the
Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame in the team category. They became the first Canadian team to win the Avco Cup with their victory in the
1976 WHA playoffs over the
Houston Aeros with their blazing passing and speed; it was the first championship for the city since the
Winnipeg Blue Bombers won the
Grey Cup in 1962.
The NHL years (1979–1996) By
1978–79, the vast majority of the WHA's teams had folded, but the Jets were still going strong. After the season, the Jets were
absorbed into the NHL along with the
Quebec Nordiques, Edmonton Oilers and
Hartford Whalers. Pre-merger inter-league exhibitions had shown that the 1978–79 Jets were the competitive equal of most NHL teams, with the possible exceptions of the three-time defending Stanley Cup champion, the
Montreal Canadiens, and the rising
New York Islanders. However, the Jets had to pay a very high price for a berth in the more established league. They had to give up three of their top six scorers – the core of the last WHA champion – in the
1979 NHL expansion draft, and were also forced to draft 18th out of 21 teams. In the expansion draft, they opted to protect defenceman
Scott Campbell, who had shown a good deal of promise in the last WHA season. However, Campbell suffered from chronic asthma that was only exacerbated by Winnipeg's frigid weather. The asthma drove him out of the league entirely by 1982. Upon entering the NHL, the Jets were put in the
Smythe Division of the
Campbell Conference. However, with a decimated roster, the Jets finished at the bottom in overall league standings during their first two seasons in the NHL, including a horrendous nine-win season in
1980–81 that still ranks as the worst in the Jets/Coyotes history. This stands in marked contrast to the other 1979 Avco Cup finalist, the Oilers, who went on to dominate the league during the second half of the 1980s. The Jets' first two wretched NHL seasons did net them high draft picks; in the
1980 draft they picked
Dave Babych second overall and in
1981 they drafted future
Hall of Fame member
Dale Hawerchuk first overall. The team developed a solid core of players by the mid-1980s, with Hawerchuk,
Thomas Steen,
Paul MacLean,
Randy Carlyle,
Laurie Boschman,
Doug Smail, and
David Ellett providing a strong nucleus. Also in 1981, a league-wide realignment placed the Jets with the league's other
Central Time Zone teams in the
Norris Division, which over the course of the decade would become the weakest division in the league. Led by Hawerchuk, Steen, Babych and Carlyle, the Jets returned to respectability fairly quickly, and made the playoffs 11 times in the next 15 years. However, regular season success did not transfer over into the playoffs. This was because after just one season in the Norris Division, the relocation of the
Colorado Rockies to
New Jersey compelled Winnipeg to return to the more competitive Smythe Division along with the Oilers and
Calgary Flames – by some accounts, the two best teams in the league during the second half of the 1980s. Due to the way the playoffs were structured at the time, whenever the Jets made the playoffs, they faced the near-certainty of having to beat either the Oilers or the Flames (or both) to get to the
Campbell Conference finals. At the time, the top four teams in each division made the playoffs, with the regular season division winner playing against the fourth-placed team and the regular season runner-up playing the third-placed team in the division semifinals. The division semifinals winners advanced to the division finals, and the two division finals winners would meet in the conference finals. For example, in
1984–85, they finished with the fourth-best record in the entire league (behind only
Philadelphia, Edmonton and
Washington). They also notched 96 points, which would remain the franchise's best as an NHL team until the
2009–10 Coyotes racked up the franchise's second 100-point season (and first as an NHL team). However, they finished second in the division behind the Oilers. While they managed to dispatch the Flames (with the league's fifth-best record) in four games in the best-of-five division semifinals, they were swept by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Oilers in the division finals. In fact, Winnipeg and Edmonton played each other in the playoffs six times between
1983 and
1990. The Oilers not only won every series, but also held the Jets to only four total victories. Five times (1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, and 1990), the Oilers went on to win the
Stanley Cup. The Jets won only one more playoff series in
1987 (defeating Calgary in the division semifinals before losing to Edmonton in the division finals). It was not until the
1993–94 season that further expansion and re-alignment placed the Jets in the
Central Division of the
Western Conference. By this time however, the Central was at least the competitive equal to the
Pacific Division and the strict division-based playoff bracket had been abandoned.
Demise and relocation to Phoenix As the NHL expanded in the United States and free agency rules were liberalized, operating costs and salaries grew rapidly; players had the leverage to demand being paid in U.S. dollars league-wide. Until about the early 1990s, Canadian teams were able to pay their players in Canadian dollars, with the exceptions being contracts acquired in trades from U.S. teams. However, since the Canadian teams still collected most of their revenue in Canadian dollars, having to pay players in U.S. dollars proved to be a serious drain on finances given the declining value of the Canadian dollar. For most of their NHL tenure, Winnipeg was the league's second-smallest market, and was set to become the smallest market after the
Quebec Nordiques moved to
Denver as the
Colorado Avalanche in
1995–96. Despite a loyal fan following, serious doubts were raised about whether Winnipeg could continue to support an NHL team. Additionally, their home arena,
Winnipeg Arena, was over 40 years old, had no luxury suites, and numerous obstructed-view seats. Under the ownership of Barry Shenkarow in 1996, the team was unable to find financing to replace its aging Winnipeg Arena, with government assistance at the time not achievable, according to the
New York Times. The Winnipeg Arena, constructed in 1955, failed to generate "ancillary revenues" to support the team enough to compete in the NHL. Faced with mounting losses, Jets owner Barry Shenkarow agreed to sell the team to American businessmen
Steven Gluckstern and Richard Burke for $65 million. They planned to move the team to the
Minneapolis–Saint Paul region, which had lost the
Minnesota North Stars to
Dallas before the
1993–94 season. In response, a local consortium called the Spirit of Manitoba was assembled. While they persuaded Shenkarow to delay the proposed sale to American interests long enough that the Jets ultimately remained in Winnipeg for the 1995–96 season, it eventually became apparent that the Spirit of Manitoba consortium was far too undercapitalized to purchase the franchise and underwrite expected losses while a proposed new arena was built. The Jets managed to qualify for the
1996 Stanley Cup playoffs in their final season in Winnipeg, and played their last game on April 28, 1996, a home playoff loss to the
Detroit Red Wings by a score of 4–1.
Norm Maciver scored the last goal in Jets history. According to
CBC, the Jets were reluctant to leave Winnipeg, where they had a strong fanbase. According to
Sports Illustrated, Tkachuk was the "American face of the franchise as it moved to Phoenix, racking up 98 points in the final Winnipeg season."
Aftermath Winnipeg was not left without a professional ice hockey team for the 1996–97 season as the
International Hockey League's
Minnesota Moose moved to Winnipeg to become the
Manitoba Moose a few months after the Jets left. The NHL ultimately returned to Winnipeg 15 years later, with the
Atlanta Thrashers relocating to become the second incarnation of the
Jets franchise which is owned by
True North Sports & Entertainment. Prior to this, True North submitted a series of bids for the financially-troubled Coyotes in October 2009 with the intention of returning the team back to its original city, which were taken seriously enough that the league drew up a tentative schedule with Winnipeg in place of Phoenix. The NHL shelved the bid after securing a large subsidy from the Coyotes' municipal government. As True North's low-key approach was praised by
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, this placed True North in a favorable position once question of the Thrashers' relocation came up. The new Jets, despite reclaiming the name and subsequently the original franchise's logos, retained the Thrashers franchise records rather than the records of the original Jets. In 2015, when the new Jets made the playoffs, Winnipeg saw its first NHL postseason home game since 1996. played with the Jets from 1991 to 1994 During their history, the Jets retired two numbers: Bobby Hull's no. 9 and
Thomas Steen's no. 25. The Coyotes have continued to honour those numbers, and hang their banners in the Jets' old blue-red-white colour scheme.
Dale Hawerchuk's no. 10 was added in 2006, in the Coyotes' sand-red-black scheme. Another tradition that was retained when the franchise moved to Phoenix was the "whiteout", in which fans wore all white to home playoff games.
Shane Doan, drafted seventh overall by the Jets in the
1995 NHL entry draft prior to their last season in Winnipeg, and who played his rookie season in Winnipeg, was the last original Jets player to still be active in the NHL (and to still be with the franchise) upon his retirement in 2017. The only other former original Jets player playing professionally by that time was
Deron Quint, who played in the
Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL) in Germany until 2017. The current Winnipeg Jets have acknowledged the original Jets' history on a number of occasions. The original franchise's division and Avco Cup championships hang atop the rafters of
Canada Life Centre, as are the honoured numbers of the original Jets who were inducted into the
current Jets' Hall of Fame. They have also worn throwback uniforms of the original Jets on a few occasions, and brought back the whiteout tradition in the
Stanley Cup playoffs. The new franchise acquired the trademarks to the name and logo of the original Jets from the NHL when it moved to Winnipeg – at the time, the league directly owned the Coyotes and thus controlled the Jets' trademarks. However, the franchise's records still belong to the Coyotes. In April 2024, after years of instability, the Coyotes suspended operations, with their assets (including players and hockey operations staff) being transferred to the new
Utah Mammoth. Unlike the Thrashers' relocation to Winnipeg (which saw all records transferred), the Coyotes entered inactivity, with their intellectual property remaining in Phoenix. Coyotes owner
Alex Meruelo was granted a five-year window to construct a new arena in the Phoenix area, upon which automatic expansion would have been triggered to "re-activate" the Coyotes. However, in late June, Meruelo opted to discontinue his efforts to build an arena and re-activate the team, ceding the Coyotes intellectual property back to the NHL, and leaving the fate of the Jets/Coyotes records uncertain. ==Uniforms==