For the first time since 1996, a deal has been reached to bring a National Hockey League club back to Winnipeg. A contract to relocate the NHL's Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg was revealed Tuesday at a news conference at the MTS Centre. The team will be called the Jets and play in the MTS Center beginning with the 2011-12 season. The NHL announced in July 2008 that it was considering moving either the Ottawa Senators or Montreal Canadiens to Winnipeg due to the financial difficulties of the original owners of those clubs. The league considered other cities for the move including Hamilton, Halifax, and Quebec City but they all declined the invitation. The Atlanta franchise was not part of the negotiations between the NHL and potential ownership groups for the other three teams because they were not interested in any other city besides Atlanta. The deal was done in secrecy with no announcement by the NHL until after it had been signed. There have been several attempts to get an NHL team to Winnipeg over the years but none of them came to fruition until now. The city has been without an NHL team since the Jets left for Phoenix in 1996. Prior to the Atlanta deal being announced, many people assumed that if Winnipeg was going to get an NHL team it would be by the Sens or Canadiens. But nobody expected it to happen so soon after the last one left.