WINNIPEG, Manitoba — Behind a large desk in an office tower with a view out over True North Square, Mark Chipman is working the phones.
Chipman is chairman of the Winnipeg Jets. A local businessman who got caught up in the failed movement to save his city’s NHL team three decades ago, he later fixed his gaze on bringing big-league hockey back to one of the smallest markets in North American professional sports and defied the odds by actually making it happen.
On this day, he’s still fighting to ensure the Jets work in Winnipeg by taking on a cumbersome task: making personal calls to those who have let their season tickets lapse.
The organization’s once-solid foundation seems to again be quaking beneath Chipman’s feet. Even playing out of the NHL’s smallest permanent arena, which holds 15,225 fans for hockey games, the Jets are drawing just 87.4 percent of capacity this season, the third-lowest mark in the 32-team league. Their overall average attendance of 13,306 is the lowest of any NHL team other than the Arizona Coyotes, who.
The Jets’ health, on and off the ice, is an extremely sensitive subject in a city where heartbreak has been felt before. The Jets left town once already — for Arizona, perhaps the ultimate symbol of hockey’s southern expansion — only to be reborn with a second chance. Losing the team again would likely mean the end for top-tier pro sports in Winnipeg.
“They’ve been really very friendly,” Chipman said of his calls during an exclusive interview with The Athletic this week. “When I first started making them, I wasn’t sure what I would encounter, but they weren’t hard calls. They were, ‘Look, I want to come back, but I’ve got two kids, 9 and 11. They’re playing hockey. I can’t come to that many games.’ And I get it. We understand.
So Chipman is looking for opportunities to win back business by offering invitations to former ticket buyers to return for a game of their choice before the end of this regular season.
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