from Paul Wiecek of the Winnipeg Free Press,

The high-flying Columbus Blue Jackets no longer use them. The defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins have mostly done away with them.

And at least eight other NHL teams have now either completely eliminated or rendered optional that uniquely anachronistic hockey institution: the game-day "morning skate."

So why, if so many teams — including some of the league’s most successful — have decided to stop dragging players out of their warm beds on game days are the Winnipeg Jets still holding morning skates on most of the days they play?

It’s a question I couldn’t help but wonder about — yet again — Thursday morning as I watched the Jets skate around in circles in an empty Barclays Center for reasons that seem to have at least as much to do with superstition and tradition as anything performance-related.

Tell me if this makes sense to you:

On a day the Jets were to play the New York Islanders at 7 p.m. local time, they dragged their players out of their beds in Manhattan, put them on a bus to Brooklyn, skated them for a half-hour or so beginning at 10:30 a.m. and then put them back on the bus and took them back to Manhattan — only to then repeat the whole journey again five hours later for the game.

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