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Whether you’re an actual Canadian person or simply one of the roughly 10% of Americans who, like me, consider themselves diehard ice hockey fans, this week no doubt finds you largely consumed — if not full-on bedridden — by a little something I like to call Stanley Cup Fever (or La Fièvre de la Coupe Stanley as it is known to my avid French Canadian readership).
The fact that the Panthers’ logo looks like it was meant for a life insurance company makes the concept of a South Florida Stanley Cup champ unacceptable to me.
This year’s contest is a rematch of last year’s finals — with the Edmonton Oilers facing off against the defending champion Florida Panthers. There is no shortage of reasons I am rooting for the Oilers to whip the Panthers around like a bunch of rag dolls and assume their rightful place as Stanley Cup champions for the first time in 35 years — and also the first Canadian franchise to win the Cup in … wait for it … 32 years.
I insist you root for the Oilers, as well.
“But Dave,” you ask, “didn’t the Oilers rebuff your offer to perform both the Canadian and American national anthems on electric guitar at an Oilers home game a couple of years ago after someone in the Oilers organization saw you doing that very thing at an Anaheim Ducks home game just a couple weeks prior — even though it was totally amazing, and you can ask anyone?”
And to that I say yes, but I have moved on mostly, and so should you. (Also, thank you for your support; I’m nothing without the fans.)
Anyway, the first reason I would like the Oilers to win this year is that they were my favorite NHL team as a kid. I grew up on the mean streets of suburban Cleveland, and, since we didn’t have an NHL team of our own, I had no choice but to offer my allegiances elsewhere.
The fact that the Oilers had cool blue and orange jerseys and a young Wayne Gretzky in their lineup — along with fellow future Hockey Hall of Famers Mark Messier, Paul Coffey and Jari Kurri — made it a no-brainer. My dad even took my brother and me to see the Oilers play the Penguins at the Civic Arena (the first major sports venue in the world with a retractable roof, for all you retractable roof enthusiasts) in Pittsburgh, and I got my program signed by all four of those guys outside the players entrance and everything.
Gretzky still had a perm at the time, which made it all the more exciting. In fact, I would like to think it was my own youthful enthusiasm combined with that perm that helped lead the team to Stanley Cup victories in ’84, ’85, ’87 and ’88. (The Oilers won one more Cup in 1990, but Gretzky had already been traded to the Los Angeles Kings and had sadly adopted a more close-cropped, chemical-free look by then, foreshadowing his future as an online gambling shill, among other things.)
Another reason I would like the Oilers to win this year is that — despite the fact that it is my dream for hockey to become the No. 1 sport in the United States and the presence of the sport in as many areas of the country as possible is crucial to that development — as a quarter-Canadian (my grandfather was from Clinton, Ontario) I struggle to accept the playing of professional hockey in regions where snow and ice don’t naturally occur. I’m not a religious man, but I just think it goes against God. And the fact that the Panthers’ logo looks like it was meant for a life insurance company or something makes the very concept of a South Florida Stanley Cup champion just unacceptable to me.
This year’s Stanley Cup is bigger than just the game of hockey.
But the biggest reason, with geopolitical importance, that I would like the Oilers to beat the Panthers is that we live in a time when the actual president of the United States — whose non-White House primary residence just so happens to be a resort/ex-wife cemetery in South Florida — suggests with disturbing regularity that Canada should become the 51st state. Aside from a handful of people I will (at the risk of sounding uncharitable) call Albertan lunatics, almost no one in Canada would ever entertain the prospect of being annexed by the neighbor to the South.
In light of this, this year’s Stanley Cup is bigger than just the game of hockey, sort of like how the U.S. men’s team’s facing off against the Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics was essentially the Cold War on ice (Note to self: Write musical titled “The Cold War on Ice.”)
I wouldn’t go as far as to say that the Oilers’ winning the sacred chalice of Canada’s Game would send a message to Donald Trump, as I’m not convinced he is capable of receiving such things. But I do think it would upset him. And I really like that idea.
“The once great sport of hockey has been ruined by the foreigners of Edmonton, who are not very nice,” the president might say. “Brave men on very cold water, ice they call it, with knives strapped to their feet … not butter knives but more like steak knives that you would use to eat Trump Steaks … not that you would even need a knife to eat a Trump steak, because they were very tender, very tender, almost like liquid meat, many people have said, including chef Guy Fieri, who is a great friend, but the nasty Canadian Oilers will never know because they, just like my son Eric, will never be invited to the White House, this much I can tell you.”
“Also hockey is canceled in Florida. Your tax dollars will not pay for Brad Marchand any longer. One more thing: If global warming is real, then why is there ice inside the arena?”
Go, Canada. Go, Oilers.
Dave Hill is a comedian, musician, writer, and actor. His most recent book is “The Awesome Game: One Man’s Incredible, Globe-Crushing Hockey Odyssey.”
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