Jim Algie reminisces about the last time he saw the Stanley Cup celebrations in person and how they stacked up against the bedlam in Barcelona after a football victory by Barca against their chief nemeses from Real Madrid. 

The Oilers’ overtime winner to vanquish Las Vegas in a five-game series was a perfect distillation of why hockey, part performance art, part athletic event, can be so compelling. Evan Bouchard cleared the puck around the boards. Corey Perry passed it on to Connor McDavid. Hitting full stride, the Oilers’ captain deked the Knights’ defenseman out of his jockstrap, executed a pinpoint, cross-ice pass to Leo Draisaitl whose sure shot netted the victory for the Oilers.

As mentioned in my previous post, the playoffs turn champs into chumps and let underdogs have their day. One such underdog is the Oilers’ Calvin Pickard. The native son of Moncton, New Brunswick spent a decade as a backup goalie for many NHL teams, and as a starter in the minor leagues before raising his game when Edmonton was skating on thin ice after losing the first two games to LA. Now he’s backstopped the team to six straight wins to become the only undefeated goalie in the playoffs.

EDMONTON, CANADA – NOVEMBER 13: Calvin Pickard #30 of the Edmonton Oilers tracks the puck during warm ups before the game against the New York Islanders at Rogers Place on November 13, 2023, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Photo by Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images)

Personally, I would have been happy to see the Jets, or the Leafs, or the Oilers, bring the cup back to Canada, but an Oilers victory would be especially sweet, since the last cup-winning celebrations I experienced in living colour, with a few shots of booze and total mayhem on the side, were in Edmonton, during the heyday of Gretzky, Messier, Anderson, Low, Coffey, Grant Fuhr between the pipes, and let’s not forget Gretzky’s bodyguard and the team’s chief goon, Dave “Cement Head” Semenko (RIP), who once fought Mohammad Ali to a draw in a three-round bout for charity.

It was bedlam in downtown Edmonton that night with fans drinking in the streets, women dancing on top of cars, a thousand horns jazzing the air, and everyone shouting, “We’re number one, we’re number one.” Some guys even tipped over a cop car while the police stood idly and impotently by, so it resembled a beetle on its back.

June 2, 1985 – Stanley Cup Parade in Edmonton with Wayne Gretzky, The Great One, on the left.

The only sports celebration I ever saw on a similar level was in Barcelona after the Barca football club upset their main rivals, Real Madrid. That night was chaos theory in action too. As me and my roommate, Antonio, a painter from Valencia, watched a man scurry up a streetlight, wearing only a Barca jersey and his underpants, to lead the crowd in a chant of “Bar-ca! Bar-ca!” Antonio said, “La gente es tan pobre en espiritu que tengan identificarse con un equipo de futbol.” (The people are so poor in spirit that they have to identify with a football team.)

Fair comment.

Connor McJesus is one of the greatest hockey players on earth.

But if the news of a new pope doesn’t light your goal lamp, and the machinations of world leaders and magnates leave you cold and in the dark, there’s always the on-ice feats of Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid, nicknamed “McJesus” by Oiler fans, to venerate. Given the soulful fervor aroused by Canada’s national sport we could also dust off that old hockey saying, once reserved for Hall-of-Fame netminders like Tony O and Bernie Parent, “Only god saves more than Calvin Pickard.”

Amen.

Some folks go to church on Sunday morning. We go to our icy cathedrals on Saturday evening. The service is called Hockey Night in Canada.

BREAKING NEWS: Only a few hours after posting this the Oilers announced that Pickard was out with an injury. As of this writing, the Jets and the Leafs lost in seven-game series to Dallas and Florida, respectlvely. The only Canadian team left is Edmonton. By all reports, Calvin Pickard may be returning to action in their current series against Dallas, as the quest for the Stanley Cup continues.

Jim Algie’s books are available on Amazon.