Why Do We Care?

The Jets are a big deal in town. The NHL came back and we were no longer a minor league city. But why do we care about them anymore? Have they given the city have of what the fans have given them? In the famous words of Daniel Alfredsson "probably not". The fans care, almost too much and complacency seems to have set in.

I remember when I was in grade 12, the year before the Jets returned my entire family came home for Christmas. One aunt from Jakarta, Indonesia, an aunt and uncle from Australia, and cousins from Vermont. We were able to go to a Manitoba Moose game. When I was in grade 11 we had our pen pal, who is from Australia but was attending school in Guelph visit and we took her to a Moose game as well. That would not have been possible, either financially or ticket availability wise with the Jets. My family is a middle class family and the Jets are expensive. My parents have been to one game, so why do people care so blindly.

Two years ago the Montreal Canadiens were struggling. They fired a good, French coach for a bad English one. Their GM ran from the media and their best veteran defenseman seemingly couldn't recover from an ACL injury. But yet they are now one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference. Why? Their owner cared. He hired a GM (who made mistakes this summer and will hopefully learn from them) and the GM hired a coach who seemingly learns from his mistakes quickly. Why does this matter to Jets fans? It doesn't because all the long term contracts are tied up in young players. Those young players seem to like playing in Montreal. There is no constant criticism of the coach from those players. Subban likes playing for Therrien for crying out loud. What's the difference? Caring ownership it seems.

When things went bad in Montreal, Geoff Molson stepped in and made changes. He is on Twitter (seriously) and interacts with fans on there. The Canadiens were embarrassed by the failure of that season and vowed to be better. That was after one bad year. They have many good, young players now. Their team is strong and their fan base is as loyal as ever. What about their Jets? Chevy is muddling along, not showing any real knowledge of what the needs are and Noel seems to know nothing about the players he has. He ran Burmistrov out of town (someone who liked the cold weather) and seems to be well on the way to doing that with Kane.

All is not rosy in Montreal. Losing happens and the tension is palatable. But their owner cares and makes sure everyone else cares. The media is addressed by the GM when needed. Molson is the majority owner and talks to the players regularly. He cares because he's a fan. There is little argument that Chipman doesn't care, but does he care in the right ways. Does he care about performance or the bottom line. Does he care about the play of the team or keeping his friends employed. Noel was not spectacular in the AHL and his NHL results leave a lot to be desired. Chevy hasn't accomplished anything in the three years he's been GM. He's handed out questionable contracts to players that didn't deserve the long term, big money commitment, and were on the wrong side of 25. It seems like the only trade that may happen is Kane being shipped out of town. Not a struggling vet but Kane; a good young player who doesn't have consistently good line mates. Of course him and Burmistrov were good together but that ship has seemingly sailed.

Will someone up top stand up for the fans and get the people in place that the fans deserve or will the Jets forever be the Thrashers in a new location? If nothing changes I propose renaming the team to the Thrashets.