WINNIPEG, Manitoba — After an absence of 15 years, the Winnipeg Jets return to life Sunday afternoon. Which is a good thing because the emotions sweeping the citizens of this prairie city at their beloved club’s rebirth have grown to a pitch so fevered that they are practically uncontainable.

“When we lost the Jets, it was like someone smashed their fist through your rib cage, and while you were still conscious, pulled your heart out,” Sam Katz, the mayor of Winnipeg, said from his office in City Hall, enunciating each word clearly for the full effect.

“Now you cannot find adverbs or adjectives that can actually describe the feelings of Winnipeggers,” he said.

The Jets’ renaissance officially begins with a sold-out home game against the Montreal Canadiens at MTS Centre. The residents of Winnipeg are as ecstatic now as they were heartbroken in 1996, when, despite a two-year Save the Jets campaign that included the donation of thousands of dollars in pennies from Manitoba schoolchildren, their N.H.L. team moved to Phoenix.