They say you can’t go back home. Unless it’s an appearance in the Stanley Cup final. Then home is where you want to be.That’s because home for me is northwest Edmonton — or Jasper Place and St. Albert, to be more precise. I’m born and raised blue and orange. And the Oilers, for better AND worse, have always been my team even after 25 years in the Ville de Vaches.Like most prairie kids, I began watching hockey around the time of the Soviet Summit and proudly carried my Bobby Orr lunch kit to school. I learned French, to my parents’ dismay, watching the Habs on CBC. My father hated the Canadiens with a passion. “Frenchies,” he always said. But I loved Dryden — I was a goalie, mostly because I couldn’t skate and I was six feet tall before I was 10. .I remember seeing my first actual Oilers game at Northlands Coliseum when I was six; Jacques Plante — another hero — was in net and Bobby Hull was playing for the Winnipeg Jets in the WHA. Pops was from the ‘Peg, so it was a big deal. Zarley Zalapski, who would go on to play D with the Flames, was a school chum in Leduc and we’d trade hockey cards.I distinctly remember when a skinny 16-year old kid named Wayne came to the Oilers from the Indianapolis Racers, after Peter Pocklington won his contract from Nelson Skalbania — an early rogue — in a backgammon game. Edmonton was still a big town in those days, not a city, and he was attending high school with a friend of mine who went to Ross Shep.I was living in St. Albert by then, when they joined the NHL in 1979. That’s when it started to get real for all of us. Another kid who went to Paul Kane lived on my block, named Mark Messier. And he was a tough SOB. All the teachers — and quite a few kids, including me — were scared of him. If he didn’t play hockey he would have surely landed in jail.That was part of the charm. I never really saw him much, apart from the time he honked at my girlfriend from his Datsun 280Z. I flipped him the bird. Two years later, it was a Porsche 930 turbo..The night the Oilers won their first Cup was the night I graduated from high school. Ironically, I didn’t get to see the Game 5. It was a Saturday night and the grad ceremonies were at the old Convention Centre on Jasper Ave.All through dinner, the score updates came: 1-0; 2-1; 3-2; 4-2 and finally 5-2. When the final buzzer sounded we could hear the roar from the street.I remember walking out the front door to be greeted with what could only be described as bedlam. The cops had blocked it off from 97th Street all the way down to Stony Plain Road and 124th St..In other words, 25 blocks of madness. People were hanging from balconies and rooftops passing whiskey bottles in the street. Cop cars were stacked high with empty beer cans while the police cheered on. They were part of it. Any cars on the main thoroughfare were stranded in a sea of humanity. The papers described it as a spontaneous, happy riot. Little did I know, or suspect, that was the end of hockey as I knew it.The sun was well up by the time I got home to my folks house back in St. Albert around 9 am. There were RCMP CheckStops on both entrances to my crescent — the party at the Messier’s house went on for another two days.I remember walking up the front doorstep half in a half-hungover daze — one of many even though I was only 17 — and seeing the newspapers on the front step. Both the Journal and the Sun with a single full-page bleed of Gretzky holding the Cup, with Coffey next to him, and a look of sheer rapture in his eyes. Ecstasy. A shiver ran up my spine as I sat in the morning sun and felt it warm my face. I cried. I still remember the sensation of tears of absolute joy streaming down my face. .No matter how the Oilers do this time around, it’s a moment in time that will never come back. And looking back, it’s almost hard to believe what a long, winding road it’s been since that coming of age in what seems like a lifetime ago. In hindsight, it was a loss of innocence.All through the good times — we thought they’d never end — and through almost three decades of at times crushing reality, I carried it with me. That sensation. .But all good things come to an end. They have to. Gretzky married a Playboy centrefold and was sold to LA like a piece of meat. A “depreciating asset” is what Peter Puck called him, even years later. Messier packed his 930 and took his roadshow to Manhattan where he won another one. Grant Fuhr was suspended a year for cocaine, living up to his nickname: Coco. It wasn’t a secret, even then.Comeuppance came hard.Pocklington went to jail for fraud. That was the real business of hockey: Nasty, brutish and short. The Boys on the Bus left town, leaving us… wanting.The city of chumps never felt the same after that. But for the space of about four years we really were the City of Champions. And we all felt it. It was a collective identity anyone north of Red Deer shared. It’s been a lonely place ever since.Hockey has never held the same place for me. To quote Chiefs’ coach Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman): “Piss on Eddie Shore. Piss on Old Time Hockey!”I hated hockey for years because I loved it so much.That’s one reason I’ll be gazing firmly ahead even as I look back. Over the next two weeks or so I’ve been designated The Western Standard’s hockey writer, reprising a role I had as sports editor of The Whitecourt Star in the 1990s and filing insightful — and hopefully, entertaining — summaries of the games.It’ll be nice to see how the Next Generation of Connor McDavid, RNH and Dr. Draisaitl handle their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — knowing that it truly is a fleeting moment that never comes back. And also secure in knowing that I’m glad those days are gone.I’ve never been a sucker for nostalgia. That’s why I genuinely like their chances this time. I think this team is for real. And I just don’t say that, because authenticity is important to me. Get real or forget about it.Go home. Or go Oilers!
They say you can’t go back home. Unless it’s an appearance in the Stanley Cup final. Then home is where you want to be.That’s because home for me is northwest Edmonton — or Jasper Place and St. Albert, to be more precise. I’m born and raised blue and orange. And the Oilers, for better AND worse, have always been my team even after 25 years in the Ville de Vaches.Like most prairie kids, I began watching hockey around the time of the Soviet Summit and proudly carried my Bobby Orr lunch kit to school. I learned French, to my parents’ dismay, watching the Habs on CBC. My father hated the Canadiens with a passion. “Frenchies,” he always said. But I loved Dryden — I was a goalie, mostly because I couldn’t skate and I was six feet tall before I was 10. .I remember seeing my first actual Oilers game at Northlands Coliseum when I was six; Jacques Plante — another hero — was in net and Bobby Hull was playing for the Winnipeg Jets in the WHA. Pops was from the ‘Peg, so it was a big deal. Zarley Zalapski, who would go on to play D with the Flames, was a school chum in Leduc and we’d trade hockey cards.I distinctly remember when a skinny 16-year old kid named Wayne came to the Oilers from the Indianapolis Racers, after Peter Pocklington won his contract from Nelson Skalbania — an early rogue — in a backgammon game. Edmonton was still a big town in those days, not a city, and he was attending high school with a friend of mine who went to Ross Shep.I was living in St. Albert by then, when they joined the NHL in 1979. That’s when it started to get real for all of us. Another kid who went to Paul Kane lived on my block, named Mark Messier. And he was a tough SOB. All the teachers — and quite a few kids, including me — were scared of him. If he didn’t play hockey he would have surely landed in jail.That was part of the charm. I never really saw him much, apart from the time he honked at my girlfriend from his Datsun 280Z. I flipped him the bird. Two years later, it was a Porsche 930 turbo..The night the Oilers won their first Cup was the night I graduated from high school. Ironically, I didn’t get to see the Game 5. It was a Saturday night and the grad ceremonies were at the old Convention Centre on Jasper Ave.All through dinner, the score updates came: 1-0; 2-1; 3-2; 4-2 and finally 5-2. When the final buzzer sounded we could hear the roar from the street.I remember walking out the front door to be greeted with what could only be described as bedlam. The cops had blocked it off from 97th Street all the way down to Stony Plain Road and 124th St..In other words, 25 blocks of madness. People were hanging from balconies and rooftops passing whiskey bottles in the street. Cop cars were stacked high with empty beer cans while the police cheered on. They were part of it. Any cars on the main thoroughfare were stranded in a sea of humanity. The papers described it as a spontaneous, happy riot. Little did I know, or suspect, that was the end of hockey as I knew it.The sun was well up by the time I got home to my folks house back in St. Albert around 9 am. There were RCMP CheckStops on both entrances to my crescent — the party at the Messier’s house went on for another two days.I remember walking up the front doorstep half in a half-hungover daze — one of many even though I was only 17 — and seeing the newspapers on the front step. Both the Journal and the Sun with a single full-page bleed of Gretzky holding the Cup, with Coffey next to him, and a look of sheer rapture in his eyes. Ecstasy. A shiver ran up my spine as I sat in the morning sun and felt it warm my face. I cried. I still remember the sensation of tears of absolute joy streaming down my face. .No matter how the Oilers do this time around, it’s a moment in time that will never come back. And looking back, it’s almost hard to believe what a long, winding road it’s been since that coming of age in what seems like a lifetime ago. In hindsight, it was a loss of innocence.All through the good times — we thought they’d never end — and through almost three decades of at times crushing reality, I carried it with me. That sensation. .But all good things come to an end. They have to. Gretzky married a Playboy centrefold and was sold to LA like a piece of meat. A “depreciating asset” is what Peter Puck called him, even years later. Messier packed his 930 and took his roadshow to Manhattan where he won another one. Grant Fuhr was suspended a year for cocaine, living up to his nickname: Coco. It wasn’t a secret, even then.Comeuppance came hard.Pocklington went to jail for fraud. That was the real business of hockey: Nasty, brutish and short. The Boys on the Bus left town, leaving us… wanting.The city of chumps never felt the same after that. But for the space of about four years we really were the City of Champions. And we all felt it. It was a collective identity anyone north of Red Deer shared. It’s been a lonely place ever since.Hockey has never held the same place for me. To quote Chiefs’ coach Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman): “Piss on Eddie Shore. Piss on Old Time Hockey!”I hated hockey for years because I loved it so much.That’s one reason I’ll be gazing firmly ahead even as I look back. Over the next two weeks or so I’ve been designated The Western Standard’s hockey writer, reprising a role I had as sports editor of The Whitecourt Star in the 1990s and filing insightful — and hopefully, entertaining — summaries of the games.It’ll be nice to see how the Next Generation of Connor McDavid, RNH and Dr. Draisaitl handle their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — knowing that it truly is a fleeting moment that never comes back. And also secure in knowing that I’m glad those days are gone.I’ve never been a sucker for nostalgia. That’s why I genuinely like their chances this time. I think this team is for real. And I just don’t say that, because authenticity is important to me. Get real or forget about it.Go home. Or go Oilers!
