DETROIT — We’re a community within a community, us sports fans. Nobody gets us but us.
The political people over at City Hall? The cultured set down at the Winspear Theatre? To them we’re fanatical.
At Chicago Blackhawks games, fans shout and scream over the words of beloved singer Jim Cornelison, which some people might not understand. But we get it, and back in Edmonton we crank that anthem up loud. Because if you know anything about hockey you never miss an anthem in Chicago.
We enjoy our wins together, whether reporting on or revelling in a franchise record-tying nine-game winning streak, like the one the Edmonton Oilers forged with a 3-2 overtime win in Detroit Thursday.
And when the inevitable losses arrive, whether it’s a just stupid game or the heartfelt loss of two old friends in Edmonton on Thursday, we come together and we mourn. Maybe even a little bit more in Edmonton, our cold, distant prairie city that nobody truly gets but us.
So on a hard, minus-30 degree day back home, where the Edmonton sports scene lost a pair of trusted scribes with the shocking passing of old friends John Short and Robin Brownlee on the very same day, folks managed a smile when Darnell Nurse popped that OT winner.
Oh, how the phones would have lit up on John’s call-in show after this one.
“It’s very surprising,” head coach Kris Knoblauch said of the nine-game streak, “considering how many good teams there were — especially in the ‘80s with Stanley Cup winners. I’m shocked that they didn’t have a run longer than nine games.
“That we were part of it feels good.”
Brownlee would have chronicled the first nine-gamer, late in the 2000-01 season, while the second one came in March and April of ’23.
The Oilers try for a team-record 10-straight on Saturday in the hallowed Bell Centre, a Saturday night in one of hockey’s cathedrals to which Short would have dedicated much of his Friday night CFRN radio show, his contacts in the sporting world so deep, his grasp of the story so keen.
Those two took us all through a lot of stuff over the years, whether it was Brownlee paying Boris Mironov’s cab fare when he climbed out of a cab at 7 a.m. one morning in L.A., or Short guiding a young Mark Spector through another season down at John Ducey Park.
Neither, however, witnessed what we’re seeing now: An Oilers team that looks as comfortable in a game that was tied at zeroes after 40 minutes as they do in a 6-5 shootout.
This, sports fans, is something new in our hockey town.
“We’re working towards that place where we’re comfortable playing in any type of game,” Nurse said. “Whether you’re down one or two in the third, or tied 0-0, the teams that go the furthest and win the ultimate title, they are able to win different ways.”
The Oilers hadn’t been in a 0-0 game through 40 minutes since Apr 9, 2022. It’s just not their thing, you see.
“We’ve always been able to open up and play an offensive game,” said Nurse, a nine-year Oiler. “But the defensive side is something we’ve been talking about for years — trying to settle in and just be confident and patient in these type of games. We’ve been doing it lately.”
The Oilers have outscored opponents 37-16 during this nine-game skein. The power play has only been average at 17.4 per cent, but the penalty kill has been impeccable at 92.6 per cent — with another perfect day on three Red Wings power plays Thursday.
On the road they’ve won seven straight, and they’ll wake up in Montreal on Friday morning an astounding three points behind the third-place Los Angeles Kings in the Pacific — and just six back of second-place Vegas with three games in hand.
Connor McDavid tied this one at 1-1 with a solo dash that brought folks out of their seats here, a lovely deke that tied McDavid with Glenn Anderson at 906 career points, fourth in Oilers team history. Then Zach Hyman wired one home for the slot for his 26th, the 22nd goal he’s scored in his past 25 games.
It’s almost robotic how Hyman is scoring and how the Oilers are winning these games, a rinse-and-repeat style of hockey we’ve not seen in Northern Alberta… Perhaps ever.
“Since Knobber (Knoblauch) has been here, we’re very calm,” Hyman said. “They score a goal? It’s, ‘Okay. We’ll just keep playing the way we’re playing. Don’t change.’
“We just want to do the same thing over and over again. Some nights you’re going to win, some nights you’re not. But if you continue to play the way that you know you can play, more times than not you’re going to win.”
Of course, there was the requisite goalie interference challenge that the Oilers lost on Detroit’s first goal, and a potential Evander Kane winner with 12 seconds left in the third that was deemed a hand pass and not allowed.
Both calls were likely just, but we’re sports folk, and the refs are the refs. They’re always wrong, right?
Alas, their decisions on this melancholy night were perfect.
Those officials had, as John always said, the democratic right to be wrong.
