from Gary Lawless of the Winnipeg Free Press,
No longer just members of the NHL, but contenders and tournament qualifiers. Getting the team back was one thing. Thursday night’s clinching of a post-season berth was another altogether.
Another threshold has been crossed. New memories, burnished with the heat of playoff competition, are about to be made.
Your Jets are back in the Stanley Cup playoffs. And now it’s time for you to resurrect your tradition. To wear white en masse to a Winnipeg Jets playoff game. To rumble like no other building in hockey. To shimmer in ghostly white.
Across the country they’ve taken note of late. The team in Winnipeg, it’s got something going. Fourteen teams will fall off the grid. Sixteen will be left. The stage will shrink, but the audience will swell.
The Jets won’t be just a Prairie thing. And neither will the return of the Winnipeg Whiteout.
It’s your tradition. You’ve saved it for this moment. Held back when tempted to leap. Resisted an early unveiling. Now is your time. Bring it forth. Dig up those old whites or buy new ones.
Just put them on and revive the scene. It’s still one of the greatest in hockey lore. Awaken the Winnipeg Whiteout from its slumber. Let it roar. It’s been borrowed but not forsaken.
It began here and it belongs here.
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