In this week’s Fan Experience, we hear from Oiler fan David Ottosen who has maintained his enthusiasm for the team despite living in England and being separated from the team by 7 time zones. (I lived in Ireland and know firsthand how difficult it is to watch the Oilers when the late games start at 3:30am.)
Without further ado….
How long have you been an Oilers fan?
Almost since they entered the league; I was born in 1973 in Edmonton, and they were my team from as far back as I can remember.
What prompted you to start cheering for the Oilers?
The family watched hockey games, and I would watch them with my dad and brother. The fact that they just routinely made the playoffs every year, often scoring major upsets, then becoming the best team ever throughout my childhood would have made it pretty difficult to not cheer for them.
What is your first real memory of the Oilers?
Some of the early years are bunched together; I have vague memories of them sweeping the Canadiens, but the more vivid early memories are of the finals against the Islanders. The hatred of Billy Smith for being a dirty goalie, the seeming impossible task of beating this unbeatable team, followed by the next year being able to actually do it.
Did you have a favourite player when you first started cheering for them? Who was it, and why did you pick him?
Probably among the strangest things; I was a big kid and when we played ball hockey or street hockey, I could really shoot it. In a very very long ago game I watched, Risto Siltanen took a slapshot and it ripped through the net. So, he was my favorite until he was traded (and even after). I still occasionally see some dude at Oilers games wearing a Siltanen jersey and it always makes me smile.
Has it been hard maintaining enthusiasm for the team over the last few years?
Yes, immensely. Part of the problem is that it seems like other teams can put a roster out there that doesn’t look all that spectacular and be competitive, while we haven’t been able to do so. It’s also been very frustrating to see some players who deserve to be much better thought of having their careers be stained by playing on a consistently losing team; players like Hall or Eberle are never considered among the best in the league just because “they don’t win.” Seeing your team do badly, and your favourite players be talked about negatively takes a lot of enjoyment away. The unbelievable cost of going to games also takes some of the enjoyment away, but I can’t really complain – I believe in the free market, and even at those costs, I spent years on the season ticket waiting list without getting seats. If the people will pay it, the Oilers would be stupid not to charge it.
What’s your favourite memory of seeing the Oilers live?
Probably not really what you mean, but my favorite memory is from a late season game against the Kings last year, but that’s because my son was picked as the Enmax Skater to skate around the ice with the Oilers flag pregame then stand on the blueline with them during the anthems. The fact that they won and basically eliminated the Kings from the playoffs didn’t hurt.
More in the spirit of what you’re asking, Doug Weight scoring a hat trick against Dallas in the playoffs in 2000. I had just finished university and finally had a little bit of money, so a friend and I each bought half season tickets to the Oilers in the mid-200s. The season itself was a bit of a slog (attending 20 games when you don’t get to pick and choose which ones wears on you a bit), but we did it so that we would have playoff ticket priority, and it was all worth it. It was the first playoff game I’d ever been to, and they had lost the first two games of the series. A loss there was basically a death sentence and a guarantee that we’d be eliminated by the Stars for the third year running. Crowd was insane taunting Belfour, and I can still see him huddled in his net as the hats came raining down.
Do you think the Oilers are on the path to a Stanley Cup, or do they have more work to do to get there?
I actually think they are, but their window is really short. Some of the traditional powers (LAK/CHI/PIT) are going to have cap trouble shortly, some of the up and coming teams (AZ/TOR/CGY) are a year or two behind, so we have a couple of years literally starting right now to make it happen before pieces have to start going out.
They still have more work to do – mainly in the goaltending area, where any kind of slump/injury to Talbot is lights out for the season. I think the biggest danger is that some of the more questionable moves they’ve made are going to be seen as “right” because of the results they get, and those results are going to be mostly driven by McDavid improving, Talbot establishing, and better injury luck. The fact that their previous debatable moves end up working out will likely cause them to continue pursuing that path, and it’s still very unclear to me that it’s the right one.
What transaction (since 2006) would you change if you could? Why?
Probably drafting Yakupov. Maybe the Oilers ruined him, maybe he just wasn’t that good, but it clearly didn’t work out between the two of them to the detriment of both. The #1 overall pick (especially a Russian sniper seen as maybe the next Pavel Bure) could have carried a fair bit of value and they could have started their re-balance of the roster then, instead of having to go nuclear this year.
Honorable mention to trading Nick Schultz, because his kid and my kid went to school together, and we would sometimes talk when picking them up at 330. It really drove home to me to remember that as fans we can be all “oh just trade this guy or that guy” like it’s moving pieces in a board game, but these are real people and getting traded or waived or released or sent down is not just a paper transaction. He had to move to a new city and his family had to stay behind until the school year ended, and I can’t imagine how it would have felt to do so if I was in his situation, no matter how many millions of dollars I was being paid.
What’s the best part about being an Oilers fan?
There is no shortage of differing opinions to read about what the team is doing right or wrong and what they should be doing. Following Oilers blogs let me get a relatively early look into the world of analytics as so many Oiler fans were part of the leading group in that area. Now that I live outside of Edmonton in a non hockey market, it’s great to be able to still feel like part of a community around my favorite team.
If you had to pick another team to cheer for, what would it be and why?
It would be mostly around picking a team with a player I could really root for who I believe “deserves” to have a Cup but doesn’t. Likely either Sharks (Jumbo Joe) or Capitals (Ovechkin).
Next Up…..
We don’t have anyone lined up for next week, so if you’d like to be featured, let us know! (Twitter DM to @TheOilersRig, or email [email protected].
OILERS RIG LIVE4MS
Our 4th annual fundraiser for the MS Society of Alberta is set for January 21, 2017 at The Pint Downtown, at 6:30pm
It’s a Battle of Alberta on HNIC, with the Oilers in Calgary. Puck drop is 8:00pm.
We’ll have a great lineup of silent auction items, as well as raffles throughout the night. We might even have tshirts for sale (but we’ll let you know as we get closer to the date).
All proceeds from the fundraiser go to the MS Society of Alberta.
See you there!
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