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Drive To 13 update: Winnipeg more than halfway to goal with general sale starting tomorrow

NHL in Winnipeg

Hockey fans celebrate at Portage and Main in downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba, after a report in The Globe and Mail newspaper that an NHL team might be moving to Winnipeg, Thursday, May 19, 2011. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly and True North Sports and Entertainment denied a deal has been reached to sell the Atlanta Thrashers to True North, which would relocate it to Winnipeg. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, John Woods)

AP

We had an update on how ticket sales were going in Winnipeg earlier today showing that over 4,000 season tickets were sold after just two days of being available as part of a presale before being opened up to the general public on Saturday. While that number was more than impressive, the “Drive To 13" update this evening was even more encouraging to the fans in Winnipeg looking to impress the NHL and guarantee the Board of Governors approval to sell the Atlanta Thrashers to True North and move the team to Canada.

Late this afternoon, the Drive To 13 official twitter account updated the sales figures and they’re huge with 7,158 season ticket deposits put down for the next three, four, or five years of Winnipeg NHL hockey. That leaves 5,842 more deposits left to go with the online free-for-all for all potential buyers tomorrow starting at noon. With the rest of Manitoba and north-central United States ready to chime in and get a piece of the action in Winnipeg, you have to think that perhaps they’ll meet their goal before the weekend is even out.

Look at it this way, True North gave fans up to three weeks to take care of business for themselves and they could get it done in four days. That’s impressive no matter how you look at it because that’s a lot of money getting plunked down and a lot of years being devoted to an NHL team. Of course, once those 13,000 tickets are bought up we’ll get to find out what True North plans on naming the team.

With all the Jets nostalgia running wild through not just the City of Winnipeg but across North America, it would become a severe let down and a damn shame to see the team named something else that smacks of marketing nonsense. We’ll save our indignation in case that happens, but we guarantee that there will be some in written form here should things go that way. Nonetheless, Winnipeg is doing their job of showing what it all means to them regardless of the team’s name and that’s something to be proud of.