that this team would be broken up over an inability to pay their superstars. In those days, there was genuine excitement in the air of the city of Edmontonâdubbed âthe city of Championsâ after a string of Stanley Cup wins for the Oilers and Grey Cup wins for the Eskimos.
I remember the Oilers doing some elaborate pre-game ceremony for Wayne Gretzkyâs birthday during the early years where then-owner Peter Pocklington came out with a contract that Wayne signed in front of the entire arena. The contract supposedly kept him with the Oilers until 1999! (Legend has it he didnât actually sign the papers in front of him.) The Oilers were all we talked about at school and at our own little small-town rink. And up until Gretzky got traded it was inconceivable that the Oilers would become some small-market feeder team. Unfortunately, thatâs exactly what happened after Gretzky left. Mark Messier led them to one more Cup in 1990, but then everything started to fall apart. The stars of the team began to get tradedaway, and eventually the Oilers were unable to compete with the bigger-market, high-spending teams of the league.
Which brings me to the last year my dad had seasonâs tickets to the Oilers. It was 1992, and I very nearly got myself banned from the Northlands Coliseum altogether.
I was attending the University of Alberta and living in âthe City.â My dad always kept his tickets at my apartment, so if he couldnât make it in for a game, Iâd be welcome to take one of my friends in his place. It was a pretty sweet arrangement, especially for my friends. Naturally, I didnât appreciate my good fortune, and as usual, I managed to embarrass my father completely.
Sometime in October 1992, I attended a game with my roommate and best friend, Trevor Sawatzky. For whatever reason that evening, the fans at the Coliseum got under our skin. We lamented the fact that the crowd was so much quieter than it had been during those wonderful playoff runs leading up to the Oilersâ last Stanley Cup in 1990.
Iâve talked to many people whoâve gone on road trips through Western Canada to watch their favourite teams face off against the Canucks, Flames, and Oilers, expecting the kind of raucous crowds youâd find in Montreal or Winnipeg. Instead, what they usually find is a decidedly stoic bunch that stay pretty quiet unless itâs a playoff situationâand in the case of the Oilers, that hasnât occurred in quite a while.
Back in the â80s, The Hockey News published the results of an anonymous survey of NHL players that asked questions including âWhatâs the quietest building in the National Hockey League?â Edmontonâs Coliseum and Calgaryâs Saddledome were at the top of the list. The buildings were the loudest during playoff time, but forthe rest of the year it was akin to playing hockey in a well-supervised library. Iâve always thought Calgary native and former NHL goaltender, broadcaster, and current Columbus Blue Jackets president John Davidson had the best explanation for this phenomenon. Fans in Edmonton and Calgary, he explained, donât come to games to get loaded, socialize, and scream for their favourite player to score the winning goal. They come to the games to watch hockey . They are students of the game and know it better than anyone. They donât need to yell âSHOOT!â every time someone touches the puck on a power play the way Kings fans do whenever I go to games at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. Theyâve watched the sport their entire lives, and they understand every nuance because most of them played the game at some point during their prairie upbringing. They love watching a fight, but itâs not the only reason they attend, which may very well be the case in several American markets. Sure, prairie hockey fans love to socialize as much as anyone in North America, but when the game is
I remember the Oilers doing some elaborate pre-game ceremony for Wayne Gretzkyâs birthday during the early years where then-owner Peter Pocklington came out with a contract that Wayne signed in front of the entire arena. The contract supposedly kept him with the Oilers until 1999! (Legend has it he didnât actually sign the papers in front of him.) The Oilers were all we talked about at school and at our own little small-town rink. And up until Gretzky got traded it was inconceivable that the Oilers would become some small-market feeder team. Unfortunately, thatâs exactly what happened after Gretzky left. Mark Messier led them to one more Cup in 1990, but then everything started to fall apart. The stars of the team began to get tradedaway, and eventually the Oilers were unable to compete with the bigger-market, high-spending teams of the league.
Which brings me to the last year my dad had seasonâs tickets to the Oilers. It was 1992, and I very nearly got myself banned from the Northlands Coliseum altogether.
I was attending the University of Alberta and living in âthe City.â My dad always kept his tickets at my apartment, so if he couldnât make it in for a game, Iâd be welcome to take one of my friends in his place. It was a pretty sweet arrangement, especially for my friends. Naturally, I didnât appreciate my good fortune, and as usual, I managed to embarrass my father completely.
Sometime in October 1992, I attended a game with my roommate and best friend, Trevor Sawatzky. For whatever reason that evening, the fans at the Coliseum got under our skin. We lamented the fact that the crowd was so much quieter than it had been during those wonderful playoff runs leading up to the Oilersâ last Stanley Cup in 1990.
Iâve talked to many people whoâve gone on road trips through Western Canada to watch their favourite teams face off against the Canucks, Flames, and Oilers, expecting the kind of raucous crowds youâd find in Montreal or Winnipeg. Instead, what they usually find is a decidedly stoic bunch that stay pretty quiet unless itâs a playoff situationâand in the case of the Oilers, that hasnât occurred in quite a while.
Back in the â80s, The Hockey News published the results of an anonymous survey of NHL players that asked questions including âWhatâs the quietest building in the National Hockey League?â Edmontonâs Coliseum and Calgaryâs Saddledome were at the top of the list. The buildings were the loudest during playoff time, but forthe rest of the year it was akin to playing hockey in a well-supervised library. Iâve always thought Calgary native and former NHL goaltender, broadcaster, and current Columbus Blue Jackets president John Davidson had the best explanation for this phenomenon. Fans in Edmonton and Calgary, he explained, donât come to games to get loaded, socialize, and scream for their favourite player to score the winning goal. They come to the games to watch hockey . They are students of the game and know it better than anyone. They donât need to yell âSHOOT!â every time someone touches the puck on a power play the way Kings fans do whenever I go to games at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. Theyâve watched the sport their entire lives, and they understand every nuance because most of them played the game at some point during their prairie upbringing. They love watching a fight, but itâs not the only reason they attend, which may very well be the case in several American markets. Sure, prairie hockey fans love to socialize as much as anyone in North America, but when the game is
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