Before the Jets flew south to Phoenix, Winnipeg enjoyed more than two decades of top-tier professional hockey.
In fact, Manitoba's largest city had one of the founding franchises in the upstart World Hockey Association that was created in 1972 as a competitor for the then-expanding National Hockey League.
The fledgling Jets not only boasted one of the league's biggest stars: Bobby Hull, whose ten-year, $2.75 million contract set a record at the time, but they also enjoyed some great success.
Beyond making the finals in five of the league's seven seasons, they won the WHA championship Avco World Trophy a total of three times.
The Jets are also in the history books as the first club team to ever beat the Soviet National team, after defeating them 5-3 in 1978, standing out as leaders for flaunting the conventional wisdom that European players were unsuited to North American-style hockey. Bucking the trend to field teams of only Canadian and American players, they were the first North American professional team to seek talent on the continent. European players recruited in the 1974-75 season, for example, included such stars as Swedish forwards Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson, as well as defenceman Lars-Erik Sjoberg.
The WHA had a troubled run, however, ultimately seeing four of its teams -- the Edmonton Oilers, New England Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, and Winnipeg Jets -- join the NHL for the 1979-1980 season.
Although the Jets had won three of the previous four WHA championships, including the last against Wayne Gretzky's Oilers, they entered the NHL a much different team.
That's because a redispersal draft saw their NHL incarnation retain just three of the former team's players. By the time the shuffling was over, the Jets had lost three of their six top scorers. Their fortunes plummeted, leaving the team at the very bottom of the league in their first two NHL seasons.
Despite rebuilding efforts that saw the team develop a strong core of players led by 1981 draft pick and future Hall of Famer Dale Hawerchuk, they never managed to turn regular season success into a championship win.
Not due to lack of talent, though, but rather because of their fiercely-competitive, not to mention talent-stacked, division rivals: the Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames.
Fans nevertheless stuck by the team, but their loyalty could not head off the operating costs and player salaries that had been rising alongside the NHL's expansion into the United States.
The first serious inklings the team was on its way out circulated during the four-month NHL lockout of the 1994-95 season.
Fans went on to mount a desperate effort to keep the team in Winnipeg, raising more than $500,000 and holding a massive rally attended by some 35,000 supporters.
But their efforts fell short of convincing team owner Barry Shenkarow to commit to keeping the Jets in Winnipeg beyond another year.
By 1995, when the Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver, Winnipeg had the ignominious distinction of being the smallest market in the league and could do little to keep the team from moving to Phoenix, Arizona in 1996.
In financial terms, the team fared a little better in its new home, however, fuelling hopes in Winnipeg that new rules concerning salary caps and revenue sharing could propel the team to head north again.
But Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz says his city's hockey fans have since moved on, and would be more than happy to have any team in their town – whether it's the transplanted Atlanta Thrashers or even an entirely new expansion team.
"For the first time I believe it's worthy of the excitement as opposed to what we went through with the Phoenix Coyotes," he said.
"It was really painful when the Jets left."
While Jets fans have never abandoned hope of the NHL's eventual return, the newly-minted Coyotes haven't entirely abandoned their Winnipeg legacy either.
The jerseys of the only two Jets to have their numbers retired -- Bobby Hull and Thomas Steen -- still hang in the Coyotes' Jobing Arena. And their current captain, Shane Doan, is the one former Jet who's still playing for the team.
Nor has Winnipeg suffered a hockey drought since the Jets flew south, as it is now home to the Vancouver Canucks' AHL affiliate Manitoba Moose and their purpose-built MTS Centre arena.
According to Mayor Katz, that's just one of the factors that has kept Winnipeg in the running for another shot at the NHL.
"The fan support was always there," he told CTV News Channel Friday. "The reason they left is because the leaders at the time couldn't figure out ... how to get a new arena built."
"We have a new arena," he said, explaining that all the necessary pieces seem to be in place now, including the Moose's current owners True North Sports and Entertainment. "We have a phenomenally capable ownership group and we have great corporate support."
Now all the Manitoba capital needs is a team.
