An Inventory of Winnipeg Jets Programs at the University of Manitoba
Inventory prepared by Erin Acland
Winnipeg, Manitoba
University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections
(2011)
Finding aid encoded by V. Zvonik (2011)
Finding aid written in English.
Table of Contents
Collection Summary
Administrative History of Winnipeg Jets
Scope and Contents of the Records
Restrictions on Access
Restrictions on Use
Related Materials
Custodial History
Detailed Description of the Collection
Winnipeg Jets Programs
Collection Summary
Repository:
University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections,
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Creator:
Winnipeg Jets
Title:
Winnipeg Jets Programs collection
Dates:
December 1975 - April 1996
Quantity:
2.13 m of textual records
Identification:
Mss 343 (A.10-64)
English
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Administrative History of Winnipeg Jets
The Winnipeg Jets programs were donated by Ken Turner who was a season ticket holder and attended nearly all of the Winnipeg Jets home games, collecting 741 home game programs. Ken Turner is an exemplar of the fan devotion to the Jets from their inception in the early 1970s to long after their move to Phoenix.
From 1972 to 1996, the Winnipeg Jets were a professional ice hockey team based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Jets were first established as a charter franchise of the World Hockey Association in 1972 and continued to play in the WHA until its merger with the National Hockey League in 1979. The Winnipeg Jets were the most successful team of the WHA and made it to the finals five out of the WHA’s seven seasons, and won the Avco World Trophy three times (1975-76, 1977-78, and 1978-79). In their first season the Jets signed National Hockey League star forward Bobby Hull to a record 2.75 million dollar ten year contract. The Jets were the first North American team to seriously recruit players from Europe whose style had previously been viewed as inappropriate for North American ice hockey. Swedish defenceman Lars-Erik Sjoberg served as the team’s captain for four seasons, and was widely considered the best defenceman of the WHA. Swedish forwards Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson along with Hull formed “the Hot Line,” the most famous and successful forward line in the WHA. In the last season of the WHA the Jets won the Avco World Trophy against the Edmonton Oilers and their star player Wayne Gretzky.
The World Hockey Association folded in 1979 and the Jets, and three other WHA teams, joined the NHL and played their first game on October 10, 1979 against the Pittsburg Penguins. After a dreadful first season, the Jets signed their future lead scorer Dale Hawerchuk in August 1981 where he led them to their first of eleven appearances in the Playoffs. Hawerchuk would play for the Jets until 1990, and he along with Hull, and defenceman Serge Savard, who played for the Jets for the last two seasons of his career after seventeen seasons with the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens, would enter the Hockey Hall of Fame located in Toronto, Ontario. Thomas Steen debuted in the 1981-82 season and played for fourteen seasons as a Jet, accumulating 950 games, the most in the history of the Jets. His number, along with Hull’s, were the only numbers retired by the franchise. Despite solid regular-season success the Jets had no success in the playoffs, because, perhaps, of the structuring of the NHL. In order to advance to the Conference Finals the Jets had to beat, sometimes both, the Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames who were, by many accounts, considered the two best teams in the NHL for most of the 1980s.
As the NHL expanded in the United States operating costs and salaries grew rapidly, and the Jets faced difficult financial circumstances due both to the differences in the Canadian and American exchange rate, and Winnipeg’s status, as of 1996, as the NHL’s smallest market. After facing financial difficulties throughout the 1990s, and despite avid fan support, on April 28, 1996 the Jets played their last NHL game in Winnipeg, a playoff loss against the Detroit Red Wings, before the franchise was sold to Phoenix, Arizona where it was renamed the Phoenix Coyotes. Nostalgia and fan support for the Winnipeg Jets continued long after the team left the city, and in May 2011 it was announced by True North Sports and Entertainment that the NHL was returning to Winnipeg with the purchase of the Atlanta Thrashers franchise.
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Scope and Contents of the Records
The collection includes 741 ice hockey programs which almost exclusively chronicle the home games of the Winnipeg Jets hockey team.
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Arrangement of the Papers
This collection is arranged into one series.
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Restrictions on Access
There are no restrictions on this material.
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Restrictions on Use
There are no restrictions on this material.
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Related Materials
Winnipeg Tribune fonds Mss 24, Pc 18 (A.81-12, A.81-23, A.81-40, A.84-49, A.85-06, A.85-07, A.91-33, A.01-47); Henry Kalen fonds Mss 256, Pc 219, Tc 128 (A.05-100); Material on the Winnipeg Jets can also be found at the Archives of Manitoba.
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Custodial History
The collection was donated to the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections by Ken Turner on September 22, 2010.
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Detailed Description of the Collection
Winnipeg Jets Programs
Box | Folder | |
1 | 07 December 1975- 07 January 1979 |
|
Box | Folder | |
2 | 9 January 1979 - 16 November 1979 |
|
Box | Folder | |
3 | 19 November 1979 - 26 October 1980 |
|
Box | Folder | |
4 | 31 October 1980 - 15 February 1981 |
|
Box | Folder | |
5 | 20 February 1981 - 6 December 1981 |
|
Box | Folder | |
6 | 1981 - 1982 |
|
Box | Folder | |
7 | 1982 - 1983 |
|
Box | Folder | |
8 | 1983 - January 1984 |
|
Box | Folder | |
9 | 03 February 1984 - 30 November 1984 |
|
Box | Folder | |
10 | 02 December 1984 - 03 November 1985 |
|
Box | Folder | |
11 | 08 November 1985 - 23 November 1986 |
|
Box | Folder | |
12 | 3 December 1986 - 22 January 1988 |
|
Box | Folder | |
13 | 03 February 1988 - 5 March 1989 |
|
Box | Folder | |
14 | 10 March 1989 - 28 November 1990 |
|
Box | Folder | |
15 | 30 November 1990- 16 October 1992 |
|
Box | Folder | |
16 | 23 October 1992 - 28 February 1994 |
|
Box | Folder | |
17 |
02 March 1994 Winnipeg Jets versus Dallas Stars Game#66, Home Game#30, NHL Game#831 |
|
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