It was last month, during that hockey nostalgiafest officially known as the Heritage Classic, when a question best answered by Mark Chipman occurred to me.
What if the chairman of True North Sports & Entertainment and the Winnipeg Jets hockey club had chosen a different name than the Jets for the National Hockey League franchise? Would we have had a Heritage Classic in Winnipeg in October? Or ever?
That’s what I wanted to ask Chipman during that week when Dale Hawerchuk and Wayne Gretzky and the rest of the Jets and Oilers old-timers were roaming the city and facing off again before a stadium full of celebratory fans.