Liam Spickelmier was born and raised in Nebraska and has no relatives in Winnipeg, but ever since a trip to the city in 2018, he says he feels like he should’ve been Canadian.
Spickelmier has been back to the Manitoba capital two more times since then, taking in six games over the visits, the most recent in mid-April. He and his fiancée, Bailey Audrey, hoped to take in a playoff game or even a whiteout street party, but with tickets sold out, they turned their attention to Colorado, where they’ll be in attendance at Ball Arena in Denver Sunday afternoon for Game 4 of the series.
“When we went to Winnipeg there was just no competition in terms of the atmosphere of the fan base. Everything was just so wild and passionate that it automatically turned us into fans,” he said.
“Since then we’ve been to 13 other arenas, and still nothing comes close.”
It’s just over a seven-hour drive from his home of Lincoln, Neb., to Denver for the game, he said. Spickelmier is hitting the road with Audrey and his 60-year-old mother, who will be watching her game.
“Obviously we’d rather be taking her to Winnipeg to experience that, but yeah, it’ll be great to get her there, she’s already super excited,” he said.
Jets fan married Avs fan
Lifelong Winnipegger and Jets fan Lyndsay Sanders is also in Denver, but not just for the game. She moved in January and lives there with her husband, who is from Denver and has been a Colorado Avalanche fan for decades.
Sanders, 42, said she and her husband have been prepping for what would happen if their teams met in the playoffs.
“I was prepared for this to be a thing and when it actually happened, I was like, ‘OK, here it is.’ I didn’t expect to be here and surrounded by Avalanche fans the first time that it happened,” said Sanders.
“It’s been interesting because all of my friends are Avs fans and they’re doing all the watch parties and going to the games and stuff like that, and it’s kind of weird being away from home for that.”
Sanders said the cost of plane tickets was a bit too steep to come home by the time the first round schedule was released, but hopes the team’s post-season run extends beyond Round 1.
“If they make it to the finals, I’m just going to pull the plug on it…. It’s a once in a lifetime thing, and I would love to be in the city somewhere if that’s something that happened,” she said.
Whiteout full house
Back in Winnipeg, some businesses are already feeling the impact of the team’s playoff run.
At Underdogs sports bar on Portage Avenue, manager Dana Cherski said it was busy during the first two games of the series last week. She said the restaurant was booked up with reservations for Game 3 Friday night, and there were more than a dozen reservations of large parties for Sunday afternoon’s contest.
“It’s been crazy, we’ve been packed full house,” she said. ”Everyone’s wearing white, it’s been a really good environment, a good buzz.”
Jets owner True North Sport and Entertainment says the Game 5 whiteout street party for Tuesday’s home game will once again be sold out, with tickets getting snatched up in under an hour.
Meanwhile, Spickelmier said he applied for jobs in Winnipeg during his recent visit to the city, but for now he and his fiancée are sticking to their plan of moving to Pennsylvania. In an ideal world, they’d like to have a property in Winnipeg and even get season tickets for the team, he said.
“Winnipeg gets kind of a bad rap for some reason with a lot of the hockey world. It gets cold there and I guess even though it’s literally a winter sport, people don’t like the cold, still, which kind of confuses me,” he said.
“But I mean, just some of the best people I’ve ever met are in Winnipeg. They’re so passionate,” said Spickelmier.
“I still don’t know if I’ve really had a bad experience during any of our time spent in Winnipeg.”