Bell MTS Place - Winnipeg Jets Arena Guide

From the outside this arena does not really look like anything out of the ordinary, but rather looks like another office building on the street. You may even confuse it for a parking garage or maybe a metro station based on the name. It is also a difficult name to remember that certainly does not strike you as a professional sports arena when you first hear it. Regardless, this is where the Jets call home and it is one of the newer arenas in sports. It was opened in 2004 which makes it about a decade younger than the average NHL arena. The development of the arena began back in 2002 when the popular Canadian store Eaton went bankrupt. Despite people’s protests of demolishing the store it occurred and was replaced by this arena instead.

Now at the start of the arena’s history it was used for the Moose specifically as the Winnipeg Jets were relocated to Phoenix, Arizona in the 1990’s and took the name Phoenix Coyotes. So it took owners to vouch for an NHL expansion team to get the Winnipeg Jets back in the city. Although the arena was much smaller than the NHL average, so it took some convincing. In order to do this, the arena hosted exhibition NHL preseason games in which they sold out year after year. After seeing the popular demand for hockey the NHL decided to provide Winnipeg with an NHL team after a decade without one. With this seating they are still the smallest arena in all of the NHL, but that does not stop them from being one of the most packed arenas. As the saying goes, it is not about the size of the dog in the fight but rather the size of the fight in the dog.