For the third (unofficial) installment of awful, now-unused of the early-90s NHL, we have the Winnipeg Arena. Great shot of Hartje (though it would have been better if he wasn’t breaking the fourth wall and screaming to the viewer that it’s a staged shot) and the rainbow seats of the home of the Jets 1.0. The layout of this place was bizarre to say the least.
IIRC, Todd was the player who went to Russia before that was sort of an “in” thing to do. Doesn’t the back of this card reference that somehow?
It does. It mentions him being the first American in the Soviet Elite League. The Jets’ GM at the time had contacts in the USSR and set him up there for a season in lieu of playing in the minors here. Hartje even wrote a book about it. He never made it to the NHL, though he did bounce around the AHL and IHL for a while.