So, here is the deal. Playing for Winnipeg has been really fun and I have no complaints about it, nor do I have the mindset that could come up with competitive solutions, but I think there is a problem with the team that could be fixed sooner than later, so I shall throw my hat at it. The Winnipeg Jets sound too much like... the Winnipeg Jets. Now, do not get me wrong here, there's a good reason the team was created with the name it currently has: at the time, Bettman was being a muppet who thought hockey should be a thing in the middle of the Southeast instead of having teams in colder places, hence why the league stuck for ages with the Phoenix / Arizona Coyotes, even if keeping them there was one of the more hilarious rolling balls of failure in the history of the rather heavily based on marketability and economy American world of sports, so naming a team after the respected (but always having to punch above their height) Winnipeg Jets made a lot of sense.

Of course, life would eventually rectify a wrong and Winnipeg would get their team back (at the expense of Atlanta and not... well, Phoenix, the people who got Winnipeg's team in the first place) but that presented a situation where you now have two Jets. And seeing as we're not a for-profit deal, we don't really have to change. Yet... it feels better to change. Imagine if the NHL Jets sucked - a team that couldn't score on the equivalent of a hooker in Bangkok; a team that would build an iron maiden when given the task of building a computer, a team maligned with personalities of poor taste and terrible behaviour that could only belong to a bastardized animated series featuring characters in yellow skin that have been going for far too long - and how the SHL team would be then dealt the bad hand of hearing about it in jest.

Alas, Winnipeg is... difficult to come up with ideas for. I thought of three possible venues. The Winnipeg Wilderness (based after the wildlife of the state, technically a bit of a Minnesota Wild rip-off), the Winnipeg Lionhearts (named after Chris Jericho, although it's a bit rough to name it after a guy who just had an open concert during the pandemic and seems to be going a bit off the hook), the Winnipeg Watchmen (named after an indie band from Winnipeg, actually used by a team IRL but referring to the Watchmen comics) and the Manitoba Rapid 204 (named after the Manitoba code and a slight nod to the Crazy 99 from Kill Bill or just about any German soccer team that ends their name with the number of their year of foundation).

So hear me out. What about if we moved to Japan?


Just saying.