We’re part of the Jets team
The Winnipeg Jets are in the playoffs, and the University of Manitoba has a connection: our alumni and faculty (and we just announced we’re giving an award to one of the team’s owners, David Thomson).
This hockey team has ben racked by injuries, but triumphed nonetheless.
As Ed Tait at the Winnipeg Free Press said, the team was “given up for dead when the defensive corps was ravaged by injuries in December, had obituaries written when Mathieu Perreault, Bryan Little and Dustin Byfuglien pulled up lame over the last month or so.”
Yet here they are.
Helping the team stay healthy and get healthy has been the mission of our faculty and alumni.
The Winnipeg Jets have seven training staff, and three are our athletic therapy graduates. Rob Milette (B.E.S.S./02) is Head Athletic Therapist and his assistant is Bradley Shaw (B.E.S.S./04) and Mark Grehan (B.E.S.S./04) is in charge of equipment.
“I’m extremely proud of all our graduates,” Jacqueline (Jacki) Elliot, an instructor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, said. “I think the program prepares them very well – especially with the placements we give students — but it’s also about how hard they work. These students are extremely motivated individuals. They don’t get to this level by just being good.”
And half of the team’s medical staff are faculty members.
Peter MacDonald, professor of surgery in the Faculty of Health Sciences, is the team’s head physician. Also on his team is Anthony Kaufmann, James Dubberley, Greg Stranges, all assistant professors of surgery in the Faculty of Health Science’s College of Medicine. Swee Tao, from the department of family medicine, and Lesley Ritchie, clinical health psychology, also help keep the players healthy – mentally and physically.
Further Reading
Paul Maurice speaks at the Asper School and tells you to wear the damn tie.