CHARLOTTE — In all his years playing in the NFL, JJ Jansen has learned a couple of lessons very well.

One, is that professional sports is a good way to make a nice living. Even with long snapper paychecks (which aren't the same as quarterback paychecks), when you stack them up over 17 years and understand the value of compounding interest, the stack can get reasonably high.

But also, for any of it to matter, it's important to remember that this is still sports, so it ought to be fun.

This weekend, those two worlds come together for Jansen the professional sports team owner, as the Charlotte Checkers — his Charlotte Checkers — begin their push for a championship tonight against Abbotsford, with Game 1 of the Calder Cup Finals tonight at Bojangles Coliseum.

Jansen's part of a group that bought the Checkers in 2024, and he laughed and admitted his stake is a small one — "I am a 1 percent owner." But he's also a local NFL player who is part of the ownership of a minor league hockey team in the town he calls home now, so he's the visible face of a franchise with passionate fans, who fill the historic coliseum on Independence Boulevard that has hosted everything from pro wrestling to Elvis and from Billy Graham to Led Zeppelin.

That means for Jansen, this investment runs much deeper than a way to make money. (And it doesn't hurt that the Checkers are the top affiliate of the Florida Panthers, who are in in the Stanley Cup Finals, tied 2-2 with the Edmonton Oilers.)

"My wife and I are incredibly committed to being a part of sports in the Carolinas," Jansen said. "So the opportunity to own the Checkers, to be able to do more of those types of things, whether it's through ownership or connecting people, that's really important because this community is really important to us, and sports is a big driver of our life.

"Just to be a part of it and really bring a lot of fun for the families and the communities in the Carolinas is something that's important to us."

For the 39-year-old Jansen, being able to sit in the owner's box at a Checkers game is cool, primarily because he gets to take his kids along, and they get to experience it together.

His context has always been sports, from his father taking him to spring training baseball and Phoenix Road Runners minor league hockey games when he was growing up in Arizona. But for the last 17 years, he's been in the life-and-death business of the NFL, so everything was geared toward preparing for and winning the game he was in at that moment.

So when he took his own children to their first few Checkers games, he learned a pretty important lesson.

One night, it conflicted with a concert he had promised to take the family to, so they left early. But they saw hockey stuff, and had the full experience before coming back for a full game shortly thereafter.

"Opening night, we went for like a period," Jansen said. "The first minute of the game, they dropped the puck, and we scored a goal. The second minute, a full fight on the ice. That was the first two minutes of my hockey ownership on the ice, and we won that night. The second game was the first game we really watched the entire game, and we lost. But I walked away, and I said, that was a great experience; I hate that we lost.

"Two days later, my wife and I were talking, and I said, 'Do you think the kids even remember if we won or lost?' And she said, 'I doubt it, it was such a good experience.'"

So Jansen went to his oldest son Luke ("the most sports fanatical") and asked. Luke shrugged and replied, with a visible lack of certainty: "I think we lost."

Then he asked his oldest daughter, Sarah, who isn't really into sports, and she replied: "No, I don't remember."

"And it hit me, this is all about building family memories," Jansen said. "Whether they win or lose is irrelevant to the viewer. They want to have a great experience with their family, a great experience with their children. Obviously, we care about winning because, with the Checkers, we're part of the group that's sending players to Florida, so we care about winning. But how did the fans feel about the environment? Are you selling great pretzels and beer? And over there's Greazy Keyz in the corner on the organ, becoming his own character, which is fantastic. And there's chuck-a-puck and all these other little events, and that's what everyone remembers.

"And that's the cool part about minor league sports, that they don't get full appreciation. Because here, and in major league sports, it feels like it's all about winning and losing, especially when you're on the field. So it's just a totally different perspective."

That realization is consistent with Jansen's character because he's a curious person and a lifetime learner. When your resume includes long snapper in 260 games (the most of any player in Panthers history), along with host of the acclaimed video series Cart Talk, aspiring broadcaster, and more, he's always looking to add to the list.

Among the things he's learned recently is that the Checkers' Calder Cup opponent, the Abbotsford Canucks, were located in a suburb of Vancouver, which is all the way on the other side of our neighboring country. "I had no idea where that was," he admitted, and Canadian geography is not always something that is known in an NFL stadium. His hockey knowledge is at a low-moderate level. He remembers Keith Tkachuk, Nikolai Khabibulin, and Jeremy Roenick from growing up in Phoenix, but does not pretend to be a huge fan of the NHL as a whole, though he's watched a lot of playoff games with his son, who has claimed Panthers fandom since they're the Checkers' parent team, and because the name works with his dad's employer.

The group he owns the Checkers with also owns another minor league hockey team (the ECHL's Greensboro Gargoyles), and an independent minor league baseball team (the Gastonia Ghost Peppers). And they're always looking for other investments, which makes sense because it's hard to imagine Jansen not involved in sports at all times (he's coaching youth baseball this weekend with his former teammate Greg Olsen, whom he helps prep for broadcasts in his spare time).

He has conversations about it at work with his buddy Andy Dalton — who owns a small percentage of the now-English Premier League soccer team Leeds United — and they've come to realize that the connection to sports and the fun are integral elements to their investments.

But Jansen has also talked to Panthers owner David Tepper about the business of sports and said with a laugh that he'd welcome an opportunity to buy a share of the Panthers one day when he's finished playing (though the valuations of NFL teams and AHL hockey teams are quite different).

Owning larger shares of other teams is absolutely something he's thinking about down the road, and being able to get some on-the-job training at the AHL level is something Jansen considers a post-graduate education.

And now that the Checkers — his Checkers — are playing for a championship, he's shifting into the competitive mode and wants to bring a trophy home. So that's why this weekend's games (Game 2 is Sunday) are big for him as both a business owner and a Charlottean.

"When I'm at a game, I don't watch the hockey as much as I look around and see our fans enjoying the engagement," he said. "When there's a break, I'm not sitting there like I'm playing or wondering what the next strategic move is. I'm looking in the stands and going, are there smiles on people's faces? I'm walking the aisles. How long are the hot dog lines and the pretzel lines, and did the Dippin' Dots run out? That all feeds into the experience of the families and what we want to provide. That's my job when I go to those games is how do you provide a great experience for the fans. When I'm here at work (at Bank of America Stadium), my job is to win.

"But with the Checkers, it only works if we're really good to the fans; it's just a cool way to provide something of value to the community, and you do that by winning. But you also do it by serving the community, giving back family-friendly opportunities to watch hockey or baseball or whatever, so it all matters."