[Mininari]

This is probably an extremely difficult thing to gauge, but I'd love to know how much net economic benefit the return of the Jets has had to the city and the Province.

Granted people are probably spending less on other things to pay for their restaurant meals / drinks / tickets, etc. But I really wonder how much more of Winnipegger's money stayed in Winnipeg this NHL season, rather than being spent in sunshine destinations like Florida... Phoenix... etc. I would expect that SOME significant percentage of people's disposable income that would normally be spent outside of the city / Province during winter stayed within our local economy. I guess one metric would be to find out if people are ditching / shortening winter-time getaways to stay / pay for their jets games.

All in all, despite any tax breaks, subsidies, preferred loan rates, etc. that True North may be getting (some bozo though they got 170M of goverment money on the WFP comments), I think the net benefit to the local and provincial economy far exceeds them. Besides much of those breaks are on revenues that would not have been there otherwise.

I am really looking forward to see how many more new restaurants, hotels, etc. open up in the coming years... future renos to the MTS Centre (minor or major), as well as team success and city sports pride.