The Athletic’s Winnipeg Jets player poll has emerged as a popular series just in time for the playoffs, giving Jets players the cover of anonymity to trade chirps, dish out behind-the-scenes stories and share parts of themselves that don’t always get coverage.
We’ve talked about Winnipeg’s best — and worst — chirpers, dug into players’ bucket lists, discussed the Jets’ most underrated players, funniest teammates, worst locker room DJs and more.
Now the Jets are taking things one step further. They have more anonymous quotes, jokes and inside stories to share with you. We’ll get into their favourite Winnipeg hangouts, their best poker players, favourite books and much more. Then, in three very special cases, we’re going to lift the veil of anonymity, with the players’ permission, giving players the chance to address questions fans have been asking about them for an awfully long time.
The Stanley Cup playoffs are about to begin and it’s time to get to know the Jets players even better than ever before.
Most likely a future coach?
Let’s start with a staple. Not everyone was asked this question but over half of the respondents had the same future coach in mind.
And guess what? His dad is also a coach, and was once a coach in Winnipeg, if you’d believe it.
| Player | Percentage of Vote |
|---|---|
|
60.0% |
|
|
20.0% |
|
|
20.0% |
One forward chose Adam Lowry as not just a future coach but as the future head coach of the Winnipeg Jets.
“He loves Winnipeg. His girlfriend is from here. I feel like he’s going to set some roots down here and he could be a good coach.”
Solid endorsement.
A defenceman began to choose a different answer but was steered away.
“Probably Scheif, I would say,” said the defenceman in question before being overruled. “Scheif for GM,” came the correction from one stall away.
Mark Scheifele was the Winnipeg Jets’ unanimous choice to run an NHL franchise.
Most likely a future GM?
| Player | Percentage of Vote |
|---|---|
|
100.0% |
“I think Scheif is the easy answer,” said a forward who did not provide an alternate, more difficult answer. “He’s a huge hockey nerd.”
“I don’t know if he wants to stay in hockey or what he wants to do (when he retires from playing) but he knows the game so well,” said a longtime Jet who has consistently been one of Winnipeg’s most sought-after interviews. “He’s really smart, so I think he could do that kind of thing. I think he’d have a knack for scouting and trading guys.”
To get a sense of Scheifele’s track record, I reached out to a fantasy football GM who had previously sassed teammates for their poor performance. What’s the dirt on Scheifele as a GM?
First, a pause.
And then: “Scheif did really well at fantasy football this past year.”
I guess he’s the real deal.
Is there a Winnipeg restaurant or hangout you’ve gotten to love?
This is a question inspired by Josh Morrissey, who I’ve noticed does a great job sharing positive Winnipeg tidbits in national media.
Jets players were given the opportunity to celebrate local hangouts and restaurants.
And you know what? One of Winnipeg’s newest players — and remember: recent acquisitions come from more famous, culturally hyped metropolises like Los Angeles, Montreal and New York — says the local restaurant scene is wildly underrated.
“I think the biggest surprise about coming here is how good all of the restaurants are,” said the newcomer. “I don’t know if that’s common for people to say that but I think most of the restaurants I’ve been to have been great. I really like the Bonfire Bistro on Corydon.”
He didn’t pronounce “Corydon” correctly but his general sense of “wow” was well received.
Here’s an answer from a longer-serving Jets player — one of Winnipeg’s own draft picks, who knows the city quite well.
“My favourite restaurant right now is probably Passero,” said the longtime Jet. “I loved Máquè before it closed down, too.”
After some discussion about Close Co. and some other highly reputed neighbourhood hotspots, the veteran Jet with the keen palate took a hard pivot.
“I took (Alex Iafallo) to Mongo’s the other day. I’ll shout out Mongo’s. Mongo’s is fantastic.”
Wait, what?
“Yeah! It’s one of my good friends’ favourites. As soon as he gets off the plane, he goes to Mongo’s, then Starbucks, and he’s ready to start work. Every time he visits, he’s like ‘We gotta go to Mongo’s.’ I can’t go every time, but it’s fantastic. I’ll shout out Mongo’s.”
If you’re not familiar with it, Mongo’s is a buffet-style, Mongolian-inspired restaurant where you collect ingredients in a bowl, bring them to a grill, and have them cooked for you in a customizable sort of stir fry. It started in Winnipeg and only exists in Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Ont., and St. Cloud, Minn.
And the Jets love it.
“It’s unique to us,” said one forward, proudly.
One of the highlights of Mongo’s — a restaurant I haven’t eaten at since I was a much younger, hungrier person — is that you pay one price and can take your bowl back up for seconds (or thirds, or fourths, if your appetite allows.)
Which leads to an obvious question: Which Jets player would eat the most at Mongo’s?
“We gotta have a tourney,” said one forward. One of his linemates agreed. And then, just as I thought I’d started some kind of special cultural competition for Winnipeg’s oldest and newest players alike …
“Wait,” said the forward. “Samberg.”
“Yeah, I forgot about Sammy,” said his linemate.
It seems as though Dylan Samberg would crush the competition so fiercely that the idea disintegrated before it could truly take hold.
Restaurants cited by other players included Passero (a few times), Mona Lisa (on Corydon), Pizzeria Gusto, Hy’s and 529 Wellington. One player took “favourite spot” more broadly and heaped praise upon Whiteshell Provincial Park (I’ll let you guess who.)
And one player who used to hate saunas started doing some research about them, decided that they were good for his body, and has become obsessed with Thermea.
“I forced myself into it. Now I love it.”
Best card player
The previous question got a bit wholesome, so we’re taking you to the section of the Jets plane that passes the time by competing doggedly in card games. When the Jets’ charter takes off to Denver for Game 3, who’s most likely to win at the card table?
“I would like to say myself,” was a common answer, spoken most emphatically by a 20-something American.
“Does it work out that way?” was a common follow-up.
“No. We have some card sharks.”
And then Nikolaj Ehlers ran away with the crown.
One of the Jets veterans answered his own version of the question.
“I’m going to say the worst poker face, if I can put a caveat in the question, is probably Dylan Samberg. He just laughs and smiles at everything, “said the veteran. I’m not at the card table but I figure if had a good hand or was bluffing, he wouldn’t be very good at hiding it.”
So who has the best poker face?
“Best poker face would be Fetts (Cole Perfetti) because he always looks a little bit grumpy.”
Special bonus content: Cole Perfetti
What does Perfetti, a renowned non-smiler, actually think about his reputation (and renown) as a grump?
If you’re unfamiliar with this topic, consider Winnipeg’s New Year’s resolutions, as given to the Jets’ social media team. After a healthy run of chirps from various players to various players about deodorant, tooth-brushing, and the need to consume less dairy, Dylan DeMelo tells the camera, “I need Cole Perfetti to smile more.”
Then Lowry chimes in to say the same thing. Then Nino Niederreiter. And not to cut down on your options too much, but neither of those players is the one who chirped Perfetti for his grumpy visage in the previous question. Personally, I’ve always found Perfetti’s resting grump-face to be a hilarious counter to his kind, open, thoughtful disposition. This is the guy who started “Fett’s Friends” and was a hit at the children’s hospital in Saginaw as a teenager. I saw him sing “Happy Birthday” to Mark Scheifele with a group of Winnipeg Jets Youth Academy Players and he’s generous with his time and energy whenever requested for an interview.
But I’ve seen it too. Sure, he’s one of the nicest guys on the team, but Perfetti’s teammates are right.
Now, if you’ve followed me on Twitter for long enough, I can guess what you’re thinking. Of course he’s grumpy, Murat! You threw him off a cliff, you fool!
There might be some truth to that. When Perfetti scored his first professional goal, driving the net to cash in on Bobby Lynch’s rebound for the Manitoba Moose, he made no mistake. I made a big one: While trying to tweet a famous scene from The Lion King wherein Rafiki the mandrill presents the newborn lion, Simba, to all of the animals at Pride Rock, I accidentally chose the wrong GIF. Rafiki holds Pride Rock’s next king over the cliff, just like in the movie, and then, in a clearly edited animation: he throws Simba off the cliff. It is perhaps my most famous mistake, with colleagues still chiming in to laugh, retweet and reference it three years down the road … And Perfetti knows all about it.
Just like he knows that Jets fans sometimes rearrange the song “Lose Yourself” by Eminem to put his name in the song.
“Cole Perfetti, Mom’s spaghetti,” has a nice ring to it. Here’s one example from noted Jets fan / meme enthusiast / social media influencer, Ava Tarrant, and I too have tried my hand at Perfetti-themed Eminem lyrics.
his palms are sweaty. moms spaghetti. cole perfetti. or whatever eminem said
— Ava (@avatarrant) September 29, 2021
OK, we get it. The internet is weird. What does Cole Perfetti think about all of this?
I’m glad you asked because I asked him to rank his love of the three most common Perfetti memes — and, because he’s such a nice guy, he agreed to put his name to these answers:
“I don’t like the non-smiler. On the ice, I don’t smile, yeah, so everyone thinks I don’t smile at all but off the ice I’m a happy guy,” he told me. “I’m straightforward and serious on the ice but, off the ice, I like to smile so I like that one the least.”
“The Lion King one makes me laugh. When he’s throwing (Simba) off, it makes me laugh. I always liked that one. Mom’s spaghetti is creative. A lot of people say it but I like it, so those two are probably tied: 1A and 1B.”
There you have it. Straight from the lion’s mouth.
Cole Perfetti first professional goal alert: https://t.co/5DCaCKhiln pic.twitter.com/HlxrDswLFz
— Murat Ates (@WPGMurat) February 16, 2021
Who is most likely to win your pregame two-touch tournament?
Alright, back to anonymity and back to the ice … Almost. As a soccer fan, I’ve always been fascinated with the Jets (and other teams’) soccer warmup before most games. It’s an all-professional-athlete version of “keep it up” where players pass a soccer ball around, mid-air, using either one or two touches of the ball. Keep it up and you stay in, let it drop and you’re out.
With so many elite athletes around, who wins?
“Ehlers,” said the first player I spoke to. “He’s the best player by far. Don’t tell him.”
“Ehlers,” said the next player, begrudgingly.
Why was the answer so tough to give?
“Because everybody thinks that they’re the most likely to win that. It gets very contentious,” came the reply. “I don’t want to give anyone the satisfaction of putting their name down, but Nikky is the honest answer.”
After a chorus of Ehlers declarations, a different theme emerged. Apparently Ehlers used to win all the time. Niederreiter emerged as a respected challenger but, eventually, the two of them stopped sticking around until the final rounds, allowing new champions to emerge.
“Fly (Ehlers) used to play. Now he doesn’t anymore. But he’s the best. Nino, maybe. He’s got a lot of skill.”
“Nino’s really good. Fly’s really good,” said a player who did not receive votes. “But they don’t stay until the finals. So usually the winner is from the middle of the road. Myself, Brenden Dillon, Pionk, Ras’ is a pretty good player… Schmidty. Usually it rotates in that group. If Nino and Fly played, none of us would win a game.”
Obviously, I took this report to Ehlers.
“Heard you stopped playing, Nik,” I said.
“One of the reasons is that it got a little bit too easy,” Ehlers said. “The other reason is that, not that I’m that old, but my body needs a little more than just two-touch nowadays to get warm. My body just needed a change-up. I’ve played a few times this year, but that’s it. It’s very easy in the beginning of your career to go out, play some two-touch, and jump on the ice but not anymore.”
So there you have it. More cutting-edge journalism from yours truly: European athletes are good at soccer.
What was your last TV/movie/book binge?
“I watched Get Gotti recently,” a defenceman said. “It’s a docuseries, three episodes. I knew John Gotti’s name, like, the mobster, but I didn’t know a whole lot about the whole thing and I watched it and it was mind-blowing.”
“Fool Me Once,” said a forward. “It was on Netflix. A British show. The girl was in the army and her husband died … I watched it over the All-Star break. You should watch it.”
“Last book was … I don’t read that much but Scar Tissue, the Anthony Kiedis memoir,” said a multitalented forward who plays at least some amount of guitar. That same forward skipped past movies and shows to say, “YouTube. I watch guitar lessons and random stuff like that.”
“No books. I only read a little bit on vacations. There was just a ‘Fast and Furious’ marathon on TV that I just watched, though,” said one of Winnipeg’s fastest skaters.
Special bonus content: Nikolaj Ehlers
“I watch a lot of shows,” Ehlers told me in response to the previous question. “I watch everything that’s out there.”
“Everything, Nik?” I said. “Does that mean you’ve watched Brooklyn Nine-Nine?”
Not only has Nikolaj Ehlers watched Brooklyn Nine-Nine, he’s more than aware of the “It’s Nikolaj” meme — a recurring gag on the show where a character named Charles Boyle incessantly corrects people’s pronunciation of his Latvian son.
“It’s Nikolajjj” they say. “No, it’s Nikolajj,” says Boyle, correcting them.
“I think it’s pretty funny,” Ehlers said, smiling. “Bucky has used it a couple of times. (Assistant equipment manager Robert Cook) loves it, too. The way (Boyle) pronounces it is not how you pronounce my name but it’s still pretty funny.”
Turns out Ehlers is a fan of the show.
“My favourite scene is when he’s standing on the other side of the glass and he’s trying to figure out who the perpetrator was and he gets them to sing Backstreet Boys, ‘I Want It That Way.’”
Best storyteller
Finally, in my ongoing quest to figure out which Jets player fans should think of as the most fun over a pint, I asked the Jets to share who they thought was their best storyteller.
Nate Schmidt emerged as an obvious front-runner. The man is a beacon of light, personality-wise, and it’s been well documented. The player he tied with might surprise you.
“Schmidty can tell a good story but I think it’s just because he’s smiling and laughing the whole time. He puts you in a good mood no matter what the story is.”
“Schmidty loves to tell stories. I don’t know if he’s the best one but he loves to tell them,” said another teammate. “‘P’ (Neal Pionk) is a pretty good storyteller. He’s a good speaker. Al has some crazy stories but he’s not a good storyteller.”
“Niederreiter tells some good stories. The accent, too, makes it funnier. I think he has the most games on the team so we always ask him about old NHL stories even though he’s not that much older than the rest of us. We always make fun of him for that but he does have some good stories.”
What does Niederreiter think of all of this?
“That is such fake news. It’s gotta be Schmidty who told you that. I don’t know about that. It might be fake news,” he said. “At the same time, I do like to listen to what people are saying. If I have something to say, I throw in a quick joke or whatever. I like to make people laugh.”
In the name of clearing the record, Schmidt did give a great answer but it was a surprising one.
“I like Sean Monahan’s stories a lot,” Schmidt said. “He talks like this, in such a low voice, and as soon as he says something funny and you don’t know if you should laugh, he gives just the smallest smile … He cracks me up. He’s undercover really funny. Just so quiet. It doesn’t come out in an obvious ‘Hey guys!’ sort of way but he says something sneaky and you just start cracking up. You might be laughing by yourself but he’s just, like, *makes sly smirk.*”
It’s fun to know who the funniest people think of as funny.
Back to Niederreiter, for a moment, for our third installment of …
Special bonus content: Nino Niederreiter
Once upon a time, a podcast called Puck Bunnies watched Niederreiter play for the Carolina Hurricanes and realized something brilliant and beautiful about Niederreiter’s name.
Turns out, it fits perfectly into a Metallica song:
give me fuel
give me fire
give me nino niederreiter— Puck Bunnies (@puckbunnies_pod) March 24, 2019
The tweet went viral, particularly so in the sillier, more irreverent parts of the internet, making Sara Civian its perfect ambassador. She shared it widely, repeated it boldly, and included it in articles here at The Athletic so often it caught on. By the time Carolina’s playoffs rolled around, there were T-shirts with the Niederreiter-based lyrics on them.
I think it’s time to share that, after all of these years, I’ve finally asked Niederreiter the important questions.
Are you familiar with Metallica?
“Metallica? Oh yeah.”
Check.
Are you familiar with the meme … Involving Metallica and you?
“‘Give me fuel, give me fire?’” he asked, reciting the lyrics perfectly. “Yeah. I think it’s funny and awesome. It was in Carolina — was it Sara? I’m not sure if she threw it out there or if it was the Canes in general. I know they made some shirts in Carolina. That was pretty cool and unique. Whenever you see someone wearing one, you feel like they must be affiliated with the Canes or something.”
As we’re speaking here and now, can you hear the tune with your name in your head?
“Not quite right this second, no,” he said. “But I’ve definitely heard it quite a few times. They keep telling me I should put it as my goal song. Maybe it’s something I’ll do for next year … Maybe.”
(Photo of Nikolaj Ehlers: James Carey Lauder / USA Today)
