I first noticed it a couple weeks back, and made a mental note to look into it further.

On the weekend I saw it again: Winnipeg Jets players, right after a monumental win that stopped the bleeding in Tampa Bay, poured off the bench and gathered at the goaltender.

But instead of just the usual celebratory head-butts with the guy in the mask, players were shaking each other’s hands.

These weren’t gloved fist bumps or high-fives, but players taking a glove off, looking straight at each other and shaking bare hands.

I’d never seen this before, and it turns out I wasn’t alone.

“It’s new to me,” Jets defenceman Tyler Myers said, Monday. “It’s a pretty cool tradition here.”

Myers, acquired in a recent trade with Buffalo, isn’t sure what it’s all about, though.

Neither is goalie Michael Hutchinson, who found himself in the middle of it a while back.

“It just kind of started happening,” Hutchinson said. “By the time they come to me, everyone’s shaking hands. I just kind of follow them. I don’t really know the reasoning to it.”

It’s a small ritual, that’s true.

But it signifies something much bigger. Something critical to the Jets’ success so far this season, and to whatever success they’ll have the rest of the way.

It turns out this ritual began one night in Chicago, on the bench.

“It’s just our way to show each other we appreciate each other’s effort out there,” Blake Wheeler explained. “Look each other in the eye and give each other a firm handshake — it’s a gentlemanly thing to do.

“Laddy (Andrew Ladd), Litts (Bryan Little) and I started doing it. We just brought it out onto the ice and it just became one of those fun things that after a win you look forward to doing.”

Actually, it began as a fun thing. Just joking around.

But it’s come to mean more. And it sets this group apart.

Every team has camaraderie, displayed in the usual ways, through dressing-room jokes, pranks, pre-game rituals and the like.

But this one goes a step further. A bare handshake. The traditional man’s greeting, in business and in friendship.

But with no insulating leather in between.

A symbol of just how close this group of players has become.

“Exactly,” Wheeler said. “It’s a respect thing. We play a tough game. It’s not an easy game to play.

“So at the end of a long, tough game, to look each other in the eye and give each other a handshake, it’s a sign of respect for what everyone’s doing.”

Has Wheeler ever seen it before?

“Not in hockey,” he said. “In other sports you see stuff like that, but not in hockey, no.”

Scoff at it, if you like.

Call it ridiculous for anyone to suggest it has anything to do with winning a hockey game. Or 34 of them.

But rituals have a way of not only formalizing bonds, but reinforcing them.

These players have formed a rare bond. It’s the only way to explain the turnaround in their play, especially the physical part, this season.

They fight for each other, even if it means taking a penalty late in a close game.

They block shots for each other, even if it means breaking a bone and missing a few weeks.

They’ll dig the puck out for each other, even if it means getting their faces stapled into the boards.

They’ll take less ice time, or sit out altogether, while a teammate takes their spot, and not complain about it.

We’ve seen it all year.

We’ve also seen them pull together when injuries have decimated the lineup.

Saturday they went into Tampa Bay, home of one of the NHL’s top teams, minus defencemen Dustin Byfuglien, Tyler Myers and Ben Chiarot and forwards Bryan Little and Mathieu Perreault — and won.

“We do have a special group here, with a lot of the things we’ve been through this year — this is another time that we’re trying to overcome some adversity,” Wheeler said. “It brings you tighter together.”

The Jets remain in a playoff position because through four trying seasons, they’ve learned to trust each other.

It shows, in interviews, during games — even after them.

After all, if a man can’t trust in a handshake, what can he trust?

paul.friesen@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @friesensunmedia