AS I SEE IT COLUMN: No parades at Portage and Main just yet

Just over a week ago, wild-eyed Manitoban sports fans were toying with the incredible possibility that we could have not one, but two parades at the historic corner of Portage and Main.

The first would be a parade honouring the Blue Bombers. Fresh off a convincing win over the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the western final, it was more than just conceivable that the Blue and Gold would finally exorcise their Grey Cup demons (after losing two in a row).

Crazed football fans would congregate at Portage and Main and then make their way over to the Forks. I was at The Forks the last time the Bombers won the Grey Cup, and it was fantastic.

The second parade took considerably more optimism, than, say realism, but it certainly was within the realm of possibility — a parade at Portage and Main for the Jets next June after they won Lord Stanley’s Cup.

After all, the Jets just set an all-time best start of the year record in the NHL. Think about that. The Jets have had a better start than dominant teams like the Montreal Canadiens in the 70s, the New York Islanders of the early 80s and the Edmonton Oilers of the late 80s. The Jets start to this season was better than those dynasties and every other NHL team since the league was created in 1917.

The NHL season was 22% over and if the Jets could keep even relatively close to their torrid pace through the regular season and the playoffs, the idea of a Stanley Cup parade suddenly wasn’t that far-fetched.

But that was then, and this is the painful now.

For the Bombers, a third consecutive collapse in as many Grey Cup appearances has the team, the organization, the media and the public wondering what went wrong…again.

Winning five straight Western finals is a magnificent accomplishment; losing three straight Grey Cups may hurt the football club in ways that will linger for a very long time.

With Manitoba hosting the Grey Cup next year the Bombers will have a lot of a big questions to answer. How many of the older core players do they bring back? Is it time to part ways with the aging (and costly) Zach Collaros, who hasn’t thrown a single touchdown pass in three consecutive Grey Cups? If they do, who on earth will replace him? (Hint: Go after Arbuckle, the backup who just beat you.)

According to Captain Obvious, this will be yet another agonizing off-season for the beloved Bombers.

And then there is the Jets.

At press time, there isn’t any urgent need to hit the panic button after two losses on their Florida road trip. Fifteen wins and only three losses is still a dreamy start, but after getting shutout 5-0 by Paul Maurice and the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, there is no question that some fans – and even some in the media – are starting to think “oh oh” even if they aren’t saying it out loud.

The reason for the worry is the way they lost to Florida.

In an 82-game schedule, teams will have off days. But if a team can’t get up for the defending champs, who are coached by their former coach, and they play a listless, uninspired game with their last head coach (Rick Bowness) in the stands, that vibe, that lack of intensity is eerily reminiscent of the Jets’ brutally quick exit from the playoffs last year and too similar in effort when they lost four straight horrid playoff games to the Montreal Canadiens a few years ago, in a series where the Jets didn’t appear to care.

Perhaps even more worrying for the Jets faithful is that Connor Hellebuyck looked way more like his playoff version than his regular season version.

In a pattern that is all too familiar, Hellebuyck plays like a Vezina-winner in the regular season but plays well below that standard when the games matter most: in the playoffs. The game against Florida was a game that mattered and Hellebuyck was okay but not anywhere near great.

So for now, with one Portage and Main parade out the window and the Jets “reverting to the mean” – the tendency for an extreme value to be followed by a more average value – it’s probably not healthy investing any emotions on thinking about parades until there actually will be one.