Atlanta Thrashers centre Ray Ferraro checks Montreal Canadiens defenseman Stephane Robidas into the boards in the first period at Philips Arena in Atlanta, December 12, 2001.TAMI CHAPPELL
Put TSN analyst Ray Ferraro at the top of the list of people who want to see the NHL work out the second time around in Winnipeg. Ferraro played his junior hockey in Brandon and thus was in the old Winnipeg Arena to play the WHL Warriors and the NHL Jets.
Good memories - and ones that were rekindled again Tuesday, when Winnipeg returned to the NHL, after the sale of the Atlanta Thrashers to True North Sports and Entertainment was offcially completed.
"There'll be a lot of talk about 'who wants to play in Winnipeg?' but I remember a teammate of mine in Hartford, Paul McDermid, got traded to Winnipeg," said Ferraro. "The conversation, after he got traded was, 'oh no, Winnipeg.' But when he got there, he loved it. Like many of the players who were there, they loved playing in Winnipeg.
"As a player, what do you want to do? Live some place where you can walk around in shorts and never play or it doesn't work? Or get an NHL chance in Winnipeg? Every kid grows up dreaming about playing in the NHL. Why would you care? You go there and you'll be supported by the people there. Winnipeg will be just fine."
Ferraro's only concern - what happens if the Canadian dollar, currently even a little better than par against its U.S. counterpart, sinks again in the years ahead? What happens then?
"I don't know enough about the economy there, but as far as their passion to go watch the games, that's not even a question," said Ferraro. "It's financially what's going to be there. There's no guarantee that the Canadian dollar will always be at this level. If the dollar, where it is right now, makes it work, then that's pretty risky - because there's going to be ups and downs there.
"But I really hope it works and I really hope a team gets into Quebec City. I love going to Quebec City.
In his junior days with the Wheat Kings, Ferraro laughs about trying to shoot pucks at the infamous portrait of the queen that hung at one end of the arena.
"That was pretty much every team that went in there because the queen picture was gi-normous. So we'd stand down there, on the ice, at the blue line and you'd get the puck flat on your blade and throw it back over your head to see if you could get it up and hit the queen. You had to be pretty strong to get it up that high - but every once in a while, the queen would take a puck off the forehead and everybody would go 'ha ha ha' and then move on with practice.
"It was the only place I've ever been in with a picture like that."
Ferraro's other lingering memory:
"We were playing there the night Bobby Hull got his number retired. The rink is so dark, except for this spotlight right in front of our bench Bobby's out in his gear and he's going to do a victory lap. We're thinking, 'oh my gawd, he's not going to see the cables and the platform that there's. And right when he got to the bench, as only Bobby would do, he leapt over top of it and turned to us and said, 'oh, you thought I was going to trip, didn't you?'
"But we were howling, thinking, 'oh my gawd, the Golden Jet's going to go down."