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| Saturday, 01 October 2011 00:15 | |||||
What is the saying? You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. That is exactly what happened here not too long ago. I was in University and too busy to follow sports, let alone afford professional sports tickets. So I was neither here nor there about losing the Jets. Unlike my friend who easily dropped a cheque of more than a hundred dollars in a last ditch effort to keep the team in Peg City. Fast forward to today, season tickets are sold out in record time and a new breed of hockey fan has emerged. Babies are wearing Jets memorabilia, so are kids and their parents. It seems everywhere I look, there is clothing bearing the Jets logo. It’s walking advertising, and they’re getting hooked right out of the womb. Winnipeg is developing some long lasting fans. My children had no clue what high calibre hockey was all about, as there was no NHL team in our city for their entire lives. There were no games to attend where we could watch the greats take to the ice. At the same time I don’t want to knock the Manitoba Moose, they were a fantastic franchise, but even at home games, you would still see a few Jets jerseys in the crowd. There was the occasional game on TV and who could forget the Gold medal match between Canada and the USA at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. We’ve never been a hockey-crazed household, but lately my boys have been showing some interest. You see, we’ve always stayed away from these types of activities because of the high costs of putting them in organized sports. We usually just let them play with cans and sticks, but we recently splurged and bought them a basketball and net. I kid about the cans and sticks, but seriously, how do people afford buying new equipment every year along with the hundreds and thousands of dollars for registration? This year Lizabeth and I bit the bullet and registered two of the Burgos boys for hockey. We have amassed the proper safety equipment and from the looks of it, they are ready to go. I ,on the other hand, need to be more prepared. In the past, we would play street hockey, with no safety equipment. Is that bad parenting? When I played as a child, all I needed was a stick, so why would I think differently now, right? Wrong. You see, no one ever wants to be goalie, so who gets stuck in net? Me. Who doesn’t have the proper pads on? Me. Who likes to take slap shots at the goalie? Everyone in the world. Which brings me to the second best invention, the jock strap or otherwise simply known as “The Cup”. Without it, I could be singing soprano right now. (Oh, and if you are wondering what the first best invention is, that would be Old Dutch Ketchup potato chips.) Along with “The Cup” my other protective gear is a goalie mask. Gotta protect my money-maker. So go ahead kids, take your best shots. A few may get past me or I could take a direct hit to the junk, but guess what, you can be grounded. So I always win. Dale Burgos manages the communications department for a Winnipeg school division. Have a comment on this article? Send us your feedback
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There is no denying that hockey fever is at an all time high here in Manitoba – heck, even in Canada, for that matter. Chatter about the new and/or returning Winnipeg Jets is the talk around every office water cooler. Twitter was abuzz with the keywords #