The Winnipeg Jets were a professional ice hockey team based in Winnipeg. They began play in the World Hockey Association (WHA) in 1972. The club joined the National Hockey League (NHL) in 1979 after the NHL merged with the WHA. The team played their home games at Winnipeg Arena.
The Jets' WHA years were successful, with the team making the playoffs every year except for the 1974–75 season. The team's success continued in the postseason, with the Jets winning the Avco Cup three times (in 1976, 1978, and 1979) and appeared in the Avco Cup Finals two additional times (in 1973 and 1977). The team struggled early on in the NHL, in part due to the 1979 expansion draft, going a combined 29–106–25 through the 1979–80 and 1980–81 seasons. The Jets made the Stanley Cup playoffs every season from 1981–82 to 1987–88, though the team only finished with a winning record twice during that period, in 1984–85 and 1986–87, which were also the only times the Jets advanced past the first round while in Winnipeg.
During the early 1990s, the Jets started to experience financial difficulties due to a combination of rule changes to free agency, a weakening Canadian dollar, and the team's home arena, the over 40 year old Winnipeg Arena, being seen as antiquated (no luxury suites) with numerous obstructed views. Additionally, Winnipeg became the NHL's smallest market following the relocation of the Quebec Nordiques to Denver, Colorado as the Colorado Avalanche in 1995–96. Following a failed plan to replace the aging Winnipeg Arena in 1996, Jets owner Barry Shenkarow sold the team to Steven Gluckstern and Richard Burke for $65 million, who eventually reached an agreement with Phoenix Suns owner Jerry Colangelo to move the team to Phoenix, Arizona, after a proposed move to Minneapolis–Saint Paul fell through. The Jets played their final home game (and final game overall) before moving on April 28, 1996, a 4–1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup playoffs. All records of the Jets were retained as the relocated franchise competed first as the Phoenix Coyotes, and then renamed itself to the Arizona Coyotes. In April 2024, after years of financial instability, the Coyotes suspended operations. With their assets (including players and hockey operations staff) being transferred to the new Utah Mammoth, the Coyotes entered inactivity with their intellectual property (name, logos, etc.) remaining in Phoenix.
The NHL returned to Winnipeg fifteen years later prior to the 2011–12 season following the relocation of the Atlanta Thrashers, and the relocated team was granted permission to use the Winnipeg Jets name and played its first home game on October 9, 2011, at the MTS Centre. On September 24, 2026, the NHL consolidated the original Jets' franchise records and history with the current Jets franchise.
History
The WHA years (1971–1979)
Recruitment and first game
On December 27, 1971, Winnipeg was granted one of the founding franchises in the World Hockey Association (WHA). The original owner was Ben Hatskin, a local figure who made his wealth in cardboard shipping containers.Scott Adam Surgent, The Complete Historical and Statistical Reference to the World Hockey Association, Xaler Press, 1995. Pg.58 The team took their name from Hatskin's Winnipeg Jets of the Western Canada Hockey League (WCHL).Scott Adam Surgent, Pg.114 The Jets' first signing was Norm Beaudin in 1972 (earning the player the moniker of "the Original Jet"). Ab McDonald was the Jets' first captain. The first major signing was Bobby Hull, with a record $1 million signing bonus. Already known as "the Golden Jet," Hull was hired by Hatskin for a full package worth at least US$2.5 million, and on June 27, 1972, Hull jumped from the NHL to the WHL, at which point he had more goals than any other active player in the NHL. He had signed a 10-year contract to play and coach with the Jets. Hull played with the team until 1979. Hull's acquisition, partially financed by the rest of the WHA's teams, gave the league instant credibility and paved the way for other NHL stars to bolt to the upstart league.
The Jets were the first North American club to seriously explore Europe as a source of ice hockey talent. Winnipeg's fortunes were bolstered by acquisitions such as Swedish forwards Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson, who starred with Hull on the WHA's most famous and successful forward line (nicknamed "the Hot Line"), and defenceman Lars-Erik Sjöberg, who would serve as the team's captain and win accolades as the WHA's best defenceman. Behind these players and other European stars such as Willy Lindström, Kent Nilsson, Veli-Pekka Ketola, leavened by players such as Peter Sullivan, Norm Beaudin and goaltender Joe Daley.
Their European players had to adapt to a more violent style of play in Canada, in some cases speaking out against the style. Hull, who had over 303 goals over seven seasons with the Winnipeg Jets from 1972 to 1979, had chronic traumatic encephalopathy when he died in 2023, donating his brain for research on the disease.
The Jets' first game in the WHA was played against the New York Raiders on October 12, 1972, in Madison Square Garden. Among members of the squad at that time were Ab McDonald, Joe Daley, Dunc Rousseau, Duke Asmundson and Bill Sutherland. Team captain Ab McDonald scored the first goal of their WHA era.
Games and championships
The Jets were the most successful team in the short-lived WHA. In the 1975-76 WHA playoffs, the Winnipeg Jets won the Avco Cup, led by Bobby Hull, Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson. It was the first team in North America to win with a European Core, according to the Winnipeg Sun. The team made the finals in five of the WHA's seven seasons, winning the Avco World Trophy three times, including in the league's final season against Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers, with Tom McVie as Jets' coach. Another notable accomplishment was the Jets' 5–3 victory over the Soviet Union national team on January 5, 1978. In the WHA's last season, Kent Nilsson scored 107 points, while Morris Lukowich had 65 goals, and Peter Sullivan had 46 goals and 86 points. During the 1979 Avco Cup Finals, Gary Smith gave up the last goal in WHA history to Dave Semenko in a 7–3 win against the Oilers.
The 1975–76, 1977–78 and 1978–79 Avco Cup-winning Winnipeg Jets teams were inducted into the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame in the team category. They became the first Canadian team to win the Avco Cup with their victory in the 1976 WHA playoffs over the Houston Aeros with their blazing passing and speed; it was the first championship for the city since the Winnipeg Blue Bombers won the Grey Cup in 1962.
The NHL years (1979–1996) By 1978–79, the vast majority of the WHA's teams had folded, but the Jets were still going strong. After the season, the Jets were absorbed into the NHL along with the Quebec Nordiques, Edmonton Oilers and Hartford Whalers. Pre-merger inter-league exhibitions had shown that the 1978–79 Jets were the competitive equal of most NHL teams, with the possible exceptions of the three-time defending Stanley Cup champion, the Montreal Canadiens, and the rising New York Islanders.
However, the Jets had to pay a very high price for a berth in the more established league. They had to give up three of their top six scorers – the core of the last WHA champion – in the 1979 NHL expansion draft, and were also forced to draft 18th out of 21 teams. In the expansion draft, they opted to protect defenceman Scott Campbell, who had shown a good deal of promise in the last WHA season. However, Campbell suffered from chronic asthma that was only exacerbated by Winnipeg's frigid weather. The asthma drove him out of the league entirely by 1982.
Upon entering the NHL, the Jets were put in the Smythe Division of the Campbell Conference. However, with a decimated roster, the Jets finished at the bottom in overall league standings during their first two seasons in the NHL, including a horrendous nine-win season in 1980–81 that still ranks as the worst in the Jets/Coyotes history. This stands in marked contrast to the other 1979 Avco Cup finalist, the Oilers, who went on to dominate the league during the second half of the 1980s.
The Jets' first two wretched NHL seasons did net them high draft picks; in the 1980 draft they picked Dave Babych second overall and in 1981 they drafted future Hall of Fame member Dale Hawerchuk first overall. The team developed a solid core of players by the mid-1980s, with Hawerchuk, Thomas Steen, Paul MacLean, Randy Carlyle, Laurie Boschman, Doug Smail, and David Ellett providing a strong nucleus. Also in 1981, a league-wide realignment placed the Jets with the league's other Central Time Zone teams in the Norris Division, which over the course of the decade would become the weakest division in the league.
Led by Hawerchuk, Steen, Babych and Carlyle, the Jets returned to respectability fairly quickly, and made the playoffs 11 times in the next 15 years. However, regular season success did not transfer over into the playoffs. This was because after just one season in the Norris Division, the relocation of the Colorado Rockies to New Jersey compelled Winnipeg to return to the more competitive Smythe Division along with the Oilers and Calgary Flames – by some accounts, the two best teams in the league during the second half of the 1980s. Due to the way the playoffs were structured at the time, whenever the Jets made the playoffs, they faced the near-certainty of having to beat either the Oilers or the Flames (or both) to get to the Campbell Conference finals. At the time, the top four teams in each division made the playoffs, with the regular season division winner playing against the fourth-placed team and the regular season runner-up playing the third-placed team in the division semifinals. The division semifinals winners advanced to the division finals, and the two division finals winners would meet in the conference finals.
For example, in 1984–85, they finished with the fourth-best record in the entire league (behind only Philadelphia, Edmonton and Washington). They also notched 96 points, which would remain the franchise's best as an NHL team until the 2009–10 Coyotes racked up the franchise's second 100-point season (and first as an NHL team). However, they finished second in the division behind the Oilers. While they managed to dispatch the Flames (with the league's fifth-best record) in four games in the best-of-five division semifinals, they were swept by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Oilers in the division finals. In fact, Winnipeg and Edmonton played each other in the playoffs six times between 1983 and 1990. The Oilers not only won every series, but also held the Jets to only four total victories. Five times (1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, and 1990), the Oilers went on to win the Stanley Cup. The Jets won only one more playoff series in 1987 (defeating Calgary in the division semifinals before losing to Edmonton in the division finals). It was not until the 1993–94 season that further expansion and re-alignment placed the Jets in the Central Division of the Western Conference. By this time however, the Central was at least the competitive equal to the Pacific Division and the strict division-based playoff bracket had been abandoned.
Demise and relocation to Phoenix