The small western Manitoba town of Rossburn made headlines today as news spread that a planned power outage would keep the town in the dark during Game 2 of the Western Conference final. 

Manitoba Hydro notified residents on May 9 about the outage. That was before anyone even knew if the Jets would be on to the third round of the playoffs.

Hydro says they needed to shut off power to the town so that work could be performed on the transformers at the substation that supplies power to the town.

The town's hotel planned to borrow the local fire department's generators so they could power televisions and show the game to locals. A $10 cover charge was going to go to the town's rink which is in need of upgrades.

Manitoba Hydro's media relations officer, Bruce Owen, confirmed however that the hard working Manitoba Hydro crews will be the heroes in Rossburn tonight.

"I guess because of the good weather conditions, and we had enough people working, we were able to get the job done quickly," Owen said. "We had power back on by 6:35 p.m."

John Kostecki is the owner of the Rossburn Hotel. He says they didn't even realize the power was already back on. "We had shut everything off so we wouldn't lose any equipment if there was a spike or a surge."

Kostecki says that it wasn't until somebody phoned them after the game started that they realized the power was restored.

About 50 people came out for the first period according to Kostecki. Quite a few went home at the start of the first intermission to get their kids. "They didn't realize it was a family-friendly event. We've got hot dogs on the BBQ, and having a good time."

Kostecki says they're keeping the power off and running on the generators for the duration of the game. "We're sticking to the plan and having fun."

Rossburn is 275 km northwest of Winnipeg.