Wow, has it been 13 years already?
Yeah, time flies, and it wasn't always fun, but if you take a step back and take a long look at the Manitoba Moose you see a franchise, ever evolving, that after all these years has finally become -- how's this for a slice of irony -- a hockey team.
Because it wasn't always that way, remember. The Moose started out life as orphans left on Winnipeg's cold doorstep; crying and filling diapers in their infancy in the now deceased International Hockey League.
The Moose weren't a hockey team then, they were a focal point of anger and even embarrassment over the loss of the Jets. They were a poor excuse for a product playing in a dungeon of an arena. They had no history and not much of a future, or so it seemed.
In short, there was something about the Moose that was just, well, depressing.
My, how times have changed. Take a look at the Moose now and you see a sports organization without peer in this province.
Think about it: The Moose consistently draw approximately 7,800 a game with 50 names on a waiting list for a luxury box. They have a former head coach who not long ago won a Stanley Cup in Anaheim, they have first-class digs, an NHL-calibre GM and, perhaps most importantly, they make money. (Hello, Bombers!)
In fact, the Moose make enough money that they didn't blink at signing veteran forward Jason Krog, who last year led the AHL in scoring (101 points) with the AHL champion Chicago Wolves and was the playoff MVP.
Krog, who is still auditioning with the parent Vancouver Canucks, is on a one-way contract that pays him $700,000. If the centreman is sent down to Manitoba, the Moose will pay the bulk of his salary, an amount more than the Bombers pay Kevin Glenn, Milt Stegall and Barrin Simpson combined.
You see, the Moose aren't just Jimmy Roy and a bucket of pucks anymore. They're not just an affordable option to take the kids to see professional hockey.
You've got Mike Keane, you've got Nolan Baumgartner, you've got Jason Jaffray and promising up-and-comers in Cory Schneider and Michael Grabner.
Indeed, for the first time this year, the Moose made a conscious decision to market their players, just as the Bombers would market Doug Brown or Charles Roberts (oops).
"I just think that over time... we've gotten more familiarity with players," said Moose media director Scott Brown. "There hasn't been as much turnover as the early years of the franchise. And we know that one day, these players are going to be legitimate NHLers."
Just like current Canucks, including Rick Rypien, Alex Burrows, Mason Raymond, Alex Edler and Jannik Hansen.
But it's not just the players who've represented the growth of the franchise. You think it's tough getting a head coach to come to the Moose after the success of Randy Carlyle in Anaheim and Alain Vigneault in Vancouver? And consider the evolution of GM Craig Heisinger, who not only has developed a reputation as a shrewd judge of talent, but he's got working relationships with the Ducks and Dallas Stars that have given the Moose a level of depth hard to match at the AHL level.
Meanwhile, it seems that hockey fans here are changing their perception about the Moose, too. Sure, we have no clue and could care very little about any other AHL teams, but there is some enjoyment associated with seeing the likes of Burrows, Edler and Raymond blossom in Vancouver. Or seeing Carlyle win the Cup, for that matter.
But that's what history can give you, and only the passage of time can allow seeing, for example, Scott Arniel go from Jet player to Moose player to head coach; all under the guidance of Heisinger and Carlyle, the twin patriarchs of professional hockey in this city. (We're not forgetting Moose president Mark Chipman, responsible for both the team and the arena, but he's more boardroom than behind the boards.)
Throw in Keane and the level of respectability and credibility is only enhanced.
That's why when the Moose season begins at the MTS Centre on Friday night, there will be questions. Can the first-rounder Schneider carry the goaltending load? Can Grabner or Alex Bolduc take the next step? Is Arniel going to follow his predecessors and turn his Moose gig into a head coaching position in the NHL? And is the 41-year-old Keane actually Dorian Gray in a hockey helmet?
But these are hockey questions, finally, for a hockey team. Not a symbol of past failures, or a source of "affordable entertainment" or a last chance for past-their-prime pros -- all variations of the Moose in the distant past.
Not a bad barn, either.
Yes, time flies.
Amazing, isn't it, what happens if you just give something a chance to grow and find it's own way in this crazy world.
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