Fans celebrate, party ahead of Heritage Classic in Winnipeg

A hero's welcome for the Winnipeg Jets ahead of the Heritage Classic at Princess Auto Stadium. Fans lined up to welcome the team and showed up hours before puck drop for the pre-game party. This is great for the city, right? I was at the Forks the other day, got a chance to talk to a lot of tourists that were coming in for this, so just knowing that it brings in a whole bunch of revenue for the city as well is awesome in my opinion. It also brought in this guy, Big Buff, who was the real star of the weekend. He played in front of fans as part of Saturday's alumni game, the first time since walking away from hockey in 2019. On Sunday, he was serving up coffee before the big game. It was good. It was a lot of fun. You know, get back to see a lot of old friends, a lot of friends here in Winnipeg still. So it's been a great time. I am excited to go back and be by myself again. I'm not gonna lie, but it's good. Love Buff, huge Buff fan. Great to see him back with the boys. It was actually, we were in line for something else and somebody said, hey, Buff's in the Tim Hortons trailer. We're like, what? So he ran over and he got to sign my jersey, which is big, I picked Buff today. Sunday was the first time Winnipeg has hosted an outdoor game in 10 years. Fans hoping it reminds people around the league about Manitoba's hockey market. Winnipeggers are very passionate. They show up for their team, they show up for the fan base. I think we'll see that with the event today. And hopefully the NHL, the people involved, see what Winnipeg truly is. It definitely brings people together. It's a huge celebration. I know there's a lot of Habs fans here as well. But there's no animosity really between the fans. It's just we're all here to have fun. Go Jets! They also hope they won't have to wait 10 more years before the Manitoba capital hosts another outdoor NHL game. Gavin Axelrod, CBC News, Winnipeg.