Hockey is a funny game and no matter how prepared or unprepared a team is, the outcomes are never quite as you expect them to be. Especially early in the season. Last night there was a deep hole dug, a team seemingly buried, a message from the future, an unlikely comeback, a fluke and then a roll of the dice to decide it all.
Tonight was one of those nights when I couldn’t get to the television for the start. By the time I sat down it was almost 9:30 but, lucky for me, it is 2013 and all I had to do was hit the old live rewind. I ultimately ended up missing the first 10 minutes, thankfully it sounds like, but managed to watch the rest of the game and be a part of the roller coaster carnival ride this team is and will be. What a game…
Back to the catch. Like I said, it is never what you expect it to be. Nothing is really, be it life or sport. When I did finally tune in and saw the score at 2-0 for the Devils I thought “Self, stay and watch. You’ll be able to speed through the pain because you’re watching on replay”. So that is what I did. The team didn’t actually look that bad for the latter half of the first. Things started to open up and they were generating some shots. Not all bad right?
Then the 2nd started and it was more of the same. Obviously just 4 odd minutes in, NJ struck again. I’m sure if I was watching live I would have shut that TV off right there. But I decided to ride it out, not because I’m part of the Oilers optimist club, but because I received a message from the not so distant future. To this point I had been avoiding the iPhone like the plague, lest it ruin my suprise. But I heard it buzz and had a quick peek. It this is what it said…
At that point I kind of suspected that things had improved. But I didn’t at all expect what I ended up witnessing. I’m not going to go over the details because we all know what happened but what I am going to say is this. Everything is going to be all right with this team. I don’t know enough to be 100% sure, but something about that little message from a person who has to be one of the all time great Oiler fans and optimists told me that we need not fret any longer. Yes the early season has been a wild an unpredictable ride. Yes we think that they should have hit the ground running and yes it is as frustrating as hell to watch this team and the management group stumble and bumble its way out of the abyss. But that is sport, especially here in Edmonton for the past 20 years.
Fans of this city had time with great champions. The Eskimos of the 70’s and 80’s and the Oilers of the glory days spoiled us into thinking that excellence was a given. And it just isn’t so. Just like last night, when we all thought that an early season miracle was in our midst, fickle Lady Luck jumped up and kicked us right in the junk with a last minute deflection off of our good captain’s skate. She provided that just as she had provided our team with the good fortune of putting four 3rd period goals in a span of 7:46 past a goal tending legend. And then to top it off, she returned fortune to our fair lads again when Eberle and Perron put identical shots past the same legend to cap off a highly unlikely comeback and win for our Blue and Orange enigmas.
The frustration is there. I get it. Sometimes it pains a person to watch these guys. They’re not all going to be pretty. Some nights this team will light the ice on fire and some nights it will be like they are running from one. Luck has it that things will eventually even out, they will improve and maybe, just maybe, give us a glimpse of champions once again. But until that point we’re going to have to buckle in, try not to be too hard on these young men and enjoy what they are about to provide us because it’s going to be a wild ride.
The future is calling and I think it’s going to be OK.
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