If Canadian hockey fans are jaundiced, the Moose have a cure. The team is big on community outreach, including an annual dinner where the players wait tables and give their tips to charity, and a sports carnival where children can shoot on the team goalies. There are pee-wee exhibition scrimmages between periods, with announcers providing play-by-play.
Morley Duchschler, a 42-year-old restaurant owner, said, "I live and die for the Chicago Blackhawks, but I am so sickened by the N.H.L. right now that I could care less if they come back." He pointed to five children no older than 10 banging excitedly on the rinkside glass while waiting for the initial Moose-Road Runners face-off. "This is hockey: the excitement of the kids to get close to the players. Does the N.H.L. care about these little guys?"
Mr. Chipman's team has doubled its advertising revenue this year and leads Canadian teams in the league in attendance. Moose tickets cost a small fraction of what an N.H.L. ticket would cost, because the team's salaries total less than $2 million. (That is less than 10 percent of the gross salary for the Pittsburgh Penguins, which has the lowest N.H.L. payroll.)
But for all of the Moose's popularity, the ghost of the Jets lives on. "Go Jets Go" is a chant still heard sometimes at Moose games.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/21/inter ... nipeg.html
