The Jets have been plagued with flagrant inconsistencies and, with a third consecutive season getting off its rails following yet another 5-game losing streak, GM Kevin Cheveldayoff pulled the trigger which sent Papa Noel home. While most agreed that a change had to be made and with many applauding today’s move, it does beg the question: was it the right one to make?

Many Jets fans have become overtly vocal about their disapproval of Claude Noel over the last few months. I will admit that I questioned some of his decisions at some points too, wondering if he was at the source of the issues that had been plaguing the dressing room for things to go so badly at times. But coaching is an art, not a science, and there is no one who can convince me that our Sam the Eagle look-alike didn’t put his very best efforts in night in and night out.

So what went wrong? Was it his attitude in the dressing room?

Was it the lack of talent that he had to work with? Was the system he insisted on implementing flawed? Or perhaps it was the clash between a nice guy trying to correct poor hockey culture and player unaccountability that was brought over from Atlanta? We may never know for sure, but it became evident to me in the player interviews following the news of his firing that they seemed somewhat relieved and felt that it was the right move for them.

But what about Chevy? Was firing Noel his preferred option in trying to shake things up in Winnipeg? Many have accused the GM of not doing his job of hiring and firing people, trading assets or just doing something to help the team. But with trade rumours circling around the NHL over the past few months that involved the likes of Byfuglien, Kane, Wheeler, Stuart and Setoguchi, to name but a few, I think Claude Noel’s firing is merely a reflection of Chevy not being able to find the deals on the cap-market that will move the franchise forward. Something had to be done and, to much of his dismay, the GM made that move and it involved firing Claude.

And so marks the end of the Chapter 1 of the new Jets era. The team had a record of 80-79-18 under Noel and they currently sit in last place of the Central Division. The Jets face off tomorrow night at home against a strong Phoenix Coyotes squad and with there being only a few weeks until the Olympic break, it may give incoming coach Paul Maurice just enough time to get a good sense of the task at hand from then until the end of the season, when his first contract is set to expire.

Claude, you may not be a looker on camera, but we could all tell by your interviews and relations with the press and fans that you cared about our club and our city.

You will be missed. Merci et bonne chance.

And while some time and a handful of games have passed since that wonderful day (I blame the multiple time zones…), I think a season preview is still well worth the effort, considering there are still 77 more games (and a playoff run) to go. Sunday’s tilt against the winless and hapless Devils gives the Jets a good chance to improve their 2-3 record (6th in the Central Division).

The 2013-2014 season is set to be one of many changes for the Little Club on the Prairie. Yes, we could talk about the change in conferences, the loss of Kyle Wellwood, Nikolai Antropov and Ron Hainsey (Whoop dee doo!) or the fact that the ice no longer cracks under Big Buff’s skates, but what is set to be the main storyline this season is merely a question of colours.

For, if the Jets’ first season could be characterised as a mere attempt to get a terribly built club organised enough to play a first season and if in Season Two GM Kevin Cheveldayoff looked to correct some of the serious structural on-ice problems by strengthening the team in size and skill all while carefully building their future up through cautious youth development, Season Three should be the year that we really begin to see the work that the “Polar Night” Blue, “Aviator” Blue, White and Silver (wouldn’t that match nicely with a gray murse???) put into remodelling this club come to fruition.

Already, 22-year-old Evander Kane has been developed into an impressive force to be reckoned with and if either Devin Setoguchi or Michael Frolik, who were acquired on the off-season to complement the young left-winger can do just that, this may just be the season where #9 really takes off and becomes the elite player he has the potential to be.

And while the Jets lost 21-year-old Alexander Burmistrov on the off-season to the KHL, which in my humble opinion is not such a tremendous loss (for reasons other than Russia’s impeccable levels of tolerance…), it is the arrival of Mark Scheifele and Jacob Trouba (the Jets’ two first-rounders from 2011 and 2012) that is making the Tide start to turn, the old Thrashers’ Georgia Bronze, Atlanta Midnight Blue, Thrasher Ice Blue, Capitol Copper, Peachtree Gold and White (good grief, that doesn’t match with anything!!!) slowly fade away and the Jets’ true colours begin to finally shine through. Puck Buddys, here is to a great season!

HELSINKI – As we approached the Southern Finnish shore and once I first caught a glimpse of the Senate Square church, tears began running down my cheeks.

I have been travelling all summer long and despite my having seen breathtaking scenery throughout 10 different countries, it was Finland that got me all choked up… ok, fine, I cried… but just a little!

It was a beautiful sight, the clouds were parted and the sun was hitting the water for the first time since I had left the foggy shores of Tallinn two hours prior. But to cry over such a sight still was slightly (greatly) exaggerated and I realised rather quickly that what had moved me in that moment was that I had just fulfilled a childhood dream of going to Finland.

It’s quite difficult to explain to someone who was not in Winnipeg during the 1990s what the Jets meant to the city. Beyond the age-old and, in my opinion, unfounded (yet self-inflicted) clichés of our city being boring, ugly and bitterly cold, it is true that Winnipeg had been suffering for quite a few years. The economy was not so favourable to us in those days and Winnipeg is not an old-money metropolis, although it had once been the third largest city in Canada.

Hockey was a diversion for us, yes, but it was also more than that. Much like kids in the schoolyard might overcompensate on their skills to mask their faults, we tied our Jets to our collective identity.

We had a team in the biggest hockey league in the world and that brought along some sort of reassurance as well as recognition on the highest and most important stage that we weren’t all that backwards after all. Unfortunately, throughout the 1980s, the Jets were a rather poor team, seldom making the playoffs and, when they did make it, they lost in colossal form. And so times were tough.

And then in came Teemu, aka God in Rémi’s Bible of Hockey. This young, fresh, good-looking Finnish kid walked into Winnipeg and swept the entire city off its feet.

And the funny thing is that it wasn’t because of His on-ice success. Ok, fine, I think 76 goals in a rookie season would have made even Richard Simmonds on skates a fan favourite, but this guy was a rock star in Winnipeg before He ever even hit the ice for the first time.

It was His kindness, His generosity and, most of all, His humbleness and modesty that won our hearts. Teemu was a living representation of what Winnipeggers should really be best known for and they recognised it and loved Him for it. And we, the kids of that generation, who best knew the Jets with #13 on the right-wing, looked up to this shy guy who came from some faraway land in absolute awe as our parents, uncles, aunts, school teachers and even strangers from every corner of society were head-over-heels and completely gaga over Him.

As Finland grew to recognise Selänne as one of their national heroes and came to cheer for the Jets, and so our love affair with Finland began. The Winnipeg Arena hosted Finland’s first ever televised NHL game and the club had given everyone in the crowd a Finnish flag, which, for a kid, was quite impressive.

In September 1994, the Jets also played a 2-game series in Finland, given the Jets also had a big name in Teppo Numminen and throughout the mid-1990s, it was not rare to see Winnipeggers cheer for Finns in other sports (Mika Häkkinen in the Formula 1, for example) and in the Olympic games.

But in 1995, Teemu was traded and the Jets followed soon thereafter – you all know the story – and a major part of our childhood was taken away from us. The city collectively licked its wounds as it had lost its seat among the bigs while other small cities like Edmonton, Buffalo and even Calgary (at the time) were still there. It was a bitter pill to swallow. From the moment Truth North Sports and Entertainment announced the return of hockey in Winnipeg, barely 3 sentences could be spoken without someone wishfully thinking that maybe, just maybe, He might come back to us for one last year just to give us all some closure over the way it all had ended. It would have been magical, just like His return to Winnipeg in December of 2011 proved to be.

Alas, a few days ago, in true Selänne fashion, the 43-year-old did the right thing and announced that he will be rewarding the loyal Duck fans for their many years of support on the golden beaches of California. Despite my knowing all along that He would do so, as I read the news on the cover of a Helsinki English-language newspaper, much unlike when I first arrived here, I longed for the part of my childhood that I had lost and was left to grieve for the days when the Finnish Flash represented what was and still is best of my hometown.

Follow Remi on twitter here. DO it!

Weeeeeeeeeeee’re baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!!! Ok, so we’re a little late in getting represented on this blog and while I could just use the same excuse True North Sports & Entertainment (or, as I call them, “God”) has been giving while getting acclimatized to the NHL (one that goes something along of the lines of “the Winnipeg Jets have only been in the league for a few months, it takes time to set things up the right way”), the truth is that I’ve only recently discovered PuckBuddys and I must say, I’m excited to contribute to this community. Very much like when I was 18 and I discovered that contrary to what I had led myself to believe, the global population of gays consisted of much more than approximately 100 people,

I’ve only recently discovered by doing a simple search on Google that the gay NHL fan-base was much more than a mere handful of individuals. In a way, I have to thank the You Can Play  project for associating the gay community with the sport we love in the mainstream media, thus giving me the idea to search for other potential hockey players/aficionados out there. I guess I should thank Google and the Internet too, for having allowed me to perform that search, but I won’t start… After all, these aren’t the Oscars… (well then why the hell is that music getting louder??)

So I guess this is my coming out, version 2.0. Having found the proof that others like me exist, it’s time to open up to this community and share my passion for the Winnipeg Jets with you. And by doing so, I necessarily have to share myself with you as well, seeing that like so many of us who grew up with the Jets only to see them leave for 16 years, the Jets carry an emotional value to us that far transcends simple sports fanfare. The Jets are my childhood and my childhood is the Winnipeg Jets.

And while I could write a novel about all of the memories I have from way back when, I won’t get into all of that in this article because I have a methodological analysis of an academic paper due on Thursday morning and I’m already mad stressed about it! (The Wednesday night shakes are coming, I can sense them). The mere fact that I’m prioritizing my coming out 2.0 over my Master’s program at the Université de Montréal shows how much being part of this community means to me (you’d better be appreciating it!).

So that being said, I’m planning on starting with a 3-part article series that explores version 1.0 of the Winnipeg Jets, followed by maybe one or two pieces on the return of the Jets and, of course, one entirely devoted to Teemu Selänne (I call him “God” too… what can I say, I’m a polytheist!). But before doing so, I’m obliged to disclose my biases: I’m a rabid Jets fan and yes, I am gay. (Ain’t nothing gonna change it!)

I am also Franco-Manitoban (pardon my English), which sometimes gives me a minority’s perspective on the Manitoban reality, and I now reside in Montréal, which permits me to look at my home town and all of the developments that have taken place in the last few years from the outside in. But don’t worry, many of my family members and friends have season tickets to the Jets, which means I get the scoop on all that goes on inside the difficult-to-get-into and ridiculously-loud MTS Centre!

Having said all of this and due to my really really needing to get back to my studies, I hope you enjoy reading about (and falling in love with) my Winnipeg Jets in the near future. Puck buddies, here’s to my second coming out!