Winnipeg fans crowd surf in celebration of Jets' playoff clincher

It’s a balmy 36 degrees in Winnipeg on Thursday night according to Weather.com. Which of course means, it’s warm enough to party Winnipeg’s first playoff berth since moving to Manitoba in 2011! Winnipeg lost 1-0 to Colorado in a shootout, but clinched based off Calgary's regulation win over Los Angeles. Canada helping Canada. Nice.

Anyhoo ... now to the celebration.

Crowd surfing on Portage and Main?  Yes!

And of course some Canadian pride.

The MTS Centre is known as arguably the best in-game atmosphere from a fan perspective in the NHL. The 15,000-plus seat arena is loud, packed, and you hardly see fans get up from their seats during play … ever.

But the team hasn’t rewarded its faithful with a playoff run. That could happen this year. And all of Winnipeg seems pumped. And so are the Jets players.

Via the Winnipeg Sun:

“Awesome,” said Jets centre Bryan Little, one of the holdovers from the Atlanta Thrashers who has never made it to the post-season party before now. “It's hard to explain until you get into the first one. For me, I've only watched it on TV and it's hard to swallow, not getting to be part of it. Now, I'm looking forward to Game 1.”

If you go back to the Thrashers days, the team has only made the playoffs once – in 2006-07. And that group was promptly swept out of the first round by the New York Rangers. Our prediction? They’ll definitely win a game this time around. And probably more.

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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper

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