If you watched some post-game video from Monday night, you might have seen David Perron, who was arguably the Oilers best player last night, talk to the media. And chances are, if you saw that, you would have noticed that Perron was wearing a jacket over his Oilers Hockey T-Shirt. That jacket, a Canadian Military jacket, has a special meaning and will be passed around for the foreseeable future.
The jacket will be awarded after every Oilers win this season by Dallas Eakins to the player deemed as the Oilers player of the game. We saw the Oilers do something like this in 2006-07 with an old fur jacket of Paul Coffey’s which the Oilers player of the game took home. Both are honors and should be worn proudly, but there is something about this new jacket that makes it very special.
The jacket comes from a friend of Eakins, who sent it to him from a soldier that served for the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan. If there’s one thing we all can agree on, it’s a respect level for the men and women who serve and protect the people of the United States and Canada. I have the utmost respect for those people who protect our freedoms in both countries, and for the Oilers to have a jacket like this, it’s awesome.
The jacket has a special meaning to Eakins, and he made a point of saying how he wanted something like this for the team, something that would represent the level of commitment, courage and teamwork needed to succeed. It’s a terrific idea, and something I applaud Eakins for doing. It’s something that represents something larger than hockey, and something that has some very significant meaning.
In Boston, I watched Andrew Ference do something very similar with the players on that team. During their 2011 cup run, Ference would present the player of the game with an ugly starter jacket from years ago. It helped bring the team together and ended up going to Mark Recchi after the team went on to win the Cup.
Last year, the Bruins gave out a US Army Ranger jacket, which served the same purpose that the Oilers’ new jacket is serving. Ference, after Boston’s run to the finals, gave the jacket to a young hockey player in the Boston area who is in a wheelchair after taking a hit from behind in a game, and has been fighting for years since his injury.
It was something minor, but something that helped bring those Bruins teams together and something that became a symbol of hard work for one of the NHL’s hardest working teams.
Dallas Eakins is a hard worker, and bringing something like this Army jacket into the locker room for the player of the game award is aterrific move in my mind. It will remind these Oilers players of the sacrifice and hard work needed, and could very well become a symbol of hard work for a team that wants to become a hard working team.
It’s a very minor detail, but for the Edmonton Oilers, their new Army jacket for player of the game is much, much more than just a jacket. It’s a symbol.
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