“Whoever wins, Wins”

I was 8 years old that spring of 1964 when I coined that phrase. It was my second Stanley Cup playoffs, and a memorable one. After the Leafs had rolled to the Cup in just 10 games in ’63 -- have I mentioned I'm old? I can recall the Leafs actually winning -- the next year things were a lot tighter. All three series (TOR-MTL, DET-CHI and then TOR-DET) were rematches, all three had the same result, but this time all three went 7 games. After the Leafs and Habs had split the first six games, my emerging mathematical mind realized that whoever won the next game, won the series. My uncharacteristically concise observation became synonymous with “Game 7” in our household for many years.

It’s particularly true when the Game 7 in question is in the Stanley Cup Finals. One for all the marbles. It’s an exciting time to be a hockey fan; even if you don’t care about the two teams involved, you care about that silver mug and you want to see whose history will be engraved on it.

This is my 46th Stanley Cup final series (an official majority of the 91 that have been played since the NHL was formed in 1917, and yes, I do feel old, thanks for asking). It is just the tenth in my time to reach Game 7. They might seem commonplace to newer, younger fans of Gary Bettman’s House of Parity, but there has been an odd distribution over the years:

1960s - 2
1970s - 1
1980s - 1
1990s - 1
2000s – 5

It’s a rare enough thing, which was especially true during dynastic times as the true powerhouses tend to end things in 6 or less. Sweeps were grossly more common than seven-gamers. The five-in-a-row Habs lost just 5 Finals games over those 5 years with only one series making it to Game 6. The four-in-a-row Habs of the late 70s lost just 3 games, and the four-in-a-row Islanders that directly followed also lost just 3 games, with each team playing (and winning) a single Game 6. The Oilers of 1983-90 got swept in their first series, then won 5 Cups with only a 7-game classic with the Flyers in 1987 requiring more than 5 games to mop up. Those Oilers lost just 3 games total in their other 4 Cup triumphs. Similarly, today’s long-standing dynasty in the Motor City got swept in a first visit to the Finals back in ’95, but have quickly disposed of subsequent opponents, losing just 3 games over their 4 successful Cup Finals. Until this year ... and tonight.

Rarer still is a 7th game overtime, which has occurred only twice, 1950 and 1954, with the Red Wings prevailing both times. The unlikely heroes were Pete Babando and Tony Leswick, both of whom are famous for no other reason. The pestiferous Leswick’s fluke goal off the glove of the great Doug Harvey could only be duplicated if Matt Cooke bounced one in off of Nick Lidstrom in OT tonight. Ugh. That one had to be tough for Habs fans to swallow ... sorry I missed it!

But since I tuned in a decade later, I watch the Stanley Cup Finals intently, every year, whether my team is in or out. In this era of many Games 7, I usually have a mild rooting interest but (2006 aside) don’t really care who wins, but am keen to see how things turn out. The Game is the thing, and by now I’ve watched well over 200 SCF games, 15 of them in person. The funny thing is how after all these years the memories of those games, especially Games 7, remain sharp. The garburetor that passes for my brain retains a torrent of game scores, goal scorers, goal times, situations, stats, factoids, mental replays ... This walk down memory lane doesn’t require hockey-reference.com – but if you find an error, please let me know. :D

1964: Detroit 0 @ Toronto 4

The first Game 7 in 9 years provided a somewhat anticlimactic end to a great series which featured 6 close games, including 2 overtimes and 2 others decided in the last minute of regulation. The coup de grace was delivered by Bob Baun, whose shock overtime goal in Game 6 had silenced an Olympia crowd expecting the Cup. That Baun was playing on a broken leg at the time is now the stuff of legend. Baun, broken leg and all, went on to play Game 7; when asked if he would get an Xray, he replied “no, if it's bad news I don't want to hear it; I have a game to play”. (Bob Baun was Lee Fogolin, Craig Muni, and Jason Smith all rolled into one.) His leg held up, and so did the Leaf defence in smothering the Wings. Andy Bathgate, acquired from the Rangers in a blockbuster trade earlier that season, scored on an early breakaway and Johnny Bower made it stand up against Gordie Howe and Co. The Leafs scored three in the third to finally break it open.

1965: Chicago 0 @ Montreal 4

This was a homer series and an extreme one at that. Montreal outscored Chicago 15-2 in the Forum, with the Hawks failing to score again after a 3-2 loss in Game 1. In Chicago Stadium it was the Habs with popgun offence, scoring just 3 goals to Chicago’s 10. So when Jean Beliveau scored something like 14 seconds into Game 7, it was over early. The Habs built their early advantage to 4-0 by the end of the first and cruised home from there. The only boring Game 7 I’ve ever seen. Gump Worsley got the shutout, and Beliveau was awarded the first Conn Smythe Trophy.

1971: Montreal 3 @ Chicago 2

The homer series that wasn’t. Chicago was the higher seed but blinked in the final game, blowing a 2-0 lead in the process. The turning point came in the second period when Bobby Hull hit the crossbar and soon after Jacques Lemaire beat Tony Esposito on an 80-foot slapper that got the Habs back in the game while draining the confidence right out of the Hawks and their fans. From that moment the outcome seemed inevitable. Henri Richard scored the tying and winning goals, and Ken Dryden made them stand up with some remarkable netminding. The pre-rookie Dryden won the Smythe, the Pocket Rocket got his revenge for being benched earlier in the series, and winning coach Al MacNeil got demoted to the AHL. The only thing the Canadiens did better than infighting, was winning.

1987: Philadelphia 1 @ Edmonton 3
The first SCFG7 in sixteen long years, and my personal favourite, because I got to attend this game live. The ultimate experience for a hockey fan, knowing that the Stanley Cup is not only in the building but is certain to be given out. Whoever wins, Wins. I attended all four home games of that series, and it was the best live hockey I’ve ever seen. Philly had a great, gritty club that pushed the most talented of all Oiler squads right to the wall. In the ultimate game Flyers scored on an early 5-on-3, but the Oil tied it on a dazzling three-way passing play from Glenn Anderson to Kent Nilsson to Mark Messier before Jari Kurri put the Oil ahead to stay late in the second on a pass from Wayne Gretzky. After a series of goalposts, near misses, and great stops by Ron Hextall, Anderson finally put it away late in the third. Oilers outshot Philly 43-20 and were full value for the win. The rookie Hextall was a standout in defeat, receiving first star honours in Game 7 as well as the Smythe. Gretzky received the Cup from John Ziegler and immediately passed it to Steve Smith in an unforgettably classy gesture.

1994 Vancouver 2 @ New York Rangers 3
The Rangers were known as Edmonton East, and it stood them in good stead when the President’s Trophy winners blew two chances to win the Cup in Games 5 and 6, just as had happened to the Oil in ’87. The Rangers still had home ice for Game 7 and weren’t about to let it get away on them. Messier, Anderson, Kevin Lowe, Craig MacTavish, and Esa Tikkanen were teammates in both games; Jeff Beukeboom and Adam Graves had won Cups for Edmonton after ’87, and were key figures on those ’94 Rangers. Messier scored the Cup-winning goal, and Mike Richter and his posts made it stand up against a hard-battling Canucks squad. Brian Leetch scored the critical opening goal and ultimately received the Conn Smythe.

2001 New Jersey 1 @ Colorado 3
For the third year in a row the Finals featured a battle of superstar goalies, but after the previous two were decided in long overtimes in Game 6, this one went the limit. Patrick Roy was the story, shutting down the Devils’ league-leading offence (it’s true! and it wasn’t close), allowing just 11 goals in the 7 games including just 2 in the 4 Colorado victories. The Devils had a chance to clinch at home in Game 6 but laid a 4-0 egg at the Swamp. Back in the Mile High City, the Avalanche jumped out to a 3-0 lead on 2 goals and a helper from Alex Tanguay, then rode Roy and fierce checking to the finish line. Roy was a clear choice for his third Conn Smythe, while an aging Ray Bourque was both inspiration and a major contributor.

2003 Anaheim 0 @ New Jersey 3
Another battle between hot goalies, as Brodeur and the Devils returned for their third SCF in four years to face J.-S. Giguere and the upstart Ducks. This was a homer series similar to 1965, in which neither team could score in the other’s building. The Ducks outscored the Devils 9-4 on the Pond, including 2-0 in overtime, but the Devils dominated at the Swamp by a 15-3 margin, including three 3-0 shutouts. Mike Rupp was the unlikeliest of heroes, subbing in for an injured Joe Nieuwendyk, contributing the Cup-winning goal and setting up both insurance markers. Strong goaltending and defence did the rest. Smythe voters looked past Brodeur’s 7 shutouts and clearly superior performance in the SCF to award Giguere the Smythe, based on his utterly brilliant work in the Western Conference playdowns.

2004 Calgary 1 @ Tampa Bay 2
The upstart Flames had a golden opportunity to wrap this one up at home, but fell 3-2 to ex-Flame Marty St.Louis’ goal in double overtime. Back in Tampa the teams played a very tight game which erupted into electrifying end-to-end action after Calgary cut the lead to 2-1 in the late stages. Lightning rode a pair of goals from Ruslan Fedotenko, fierce checking, and outstanding goaltending from Nikolai Khabibulin to seal the win. Brad Richards was awarded the Conn Smythe for a spectacular playoff run which included 7 game winners among his 12 goals.

2006 Edmonton 1 @ Carolina 3
The Oilers were in the same boat as the ’87 Flyers and ’94 Canucks, coming back from a 3-1 series deficit to force a one-game showdown, unfortunately in the other guys’ rink. The Hurricanes bounced back from a 4-0 drubbing in Game 6 to score the all-important first goal on the game’s first sequence. Frank Kaberle extended the lead with the eventual Cup winning goal on a deflection off Jason Smith's butt before Fernando Pisani made it close early in the third, but the tying goal was not to be. An empty netter by Justin Williams provided the final margin in what was essentially a one-goal game. Cam Ward outdueled a game but rusty Jussi Markkanen over the 7 games, becoming the fourth rookie goalie to win the Smythe after Dryden, Roy and Hextall. The Carolina fans reportedly never sat down for the entire game.

2009 Pittsburgh ? @ Detroit ??
Well, who knows. If past experience means anything it will be a low-scoring affair favouring the home team. In the 9 SCFG7’s over the past half century, the hosts (and, by definition, the pre-series favourites) have outscored the visitors by an aggregate of 27-9, or exactly 3-1. Oiler fans have been on both sides of that exact scoreline. 8 of the 9 times the home team carried the day, 8 times the hosts scored first, 7 times the visitors were held to 0 or 1 goal. It’s a daunting task the Penguins face. Moreover, the series is following the pattern of those previous “homer” series, where each team has had trouble producing on the road. The Pens have handled the Wings 10-5 in the Igloo, but have been blitzed 11-2 in the Joe. 2 goals in 3 games, all too reminiscent of Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita and the high-powered Hawks wimpy production of 2 goals in 4 games at the Forum in ’65, or the Ducks meagre 3 at the Swamp in ’03. Malkin, Crosby, and the high-powered Pens aren’t only battling Osgood, Lidstrom, Zetterberg, Datsyuk and the boys, they’re fighting history.

Ah, history. Let’s go back just a little further. Like 2009, the 1955 Stanley Cup Finals featured a rare rematch of the previous year’s combatants, Montreal and Detroit, with the defending champion Wings again holding the all-important home ice advantage. Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay, who dropped the ceremonial first pucks before this year's Game 1 in a memorable gathering of hockey greats, were formidable forces leading a powerhouse Red Wings squad the last time a Game 7 was played in the Motor City, 54 long years ago. It was a homer series all the way, with the rising powerhouse Habs scoring 15 goals in 3 games at the Forum, but just 5 in 4 games at the Olympia. (OK, I admit I had to look that one up. Don’t remember it well, having been a foetus at the time ... and my Mum was the only non-hockey fan in the whole famdamily, so I couldn’t even listen in.) Anyway, the Wings successfully defended their title with a convincing two-way effort in the showdown game, with Mister Hockey himself contributing the Stanley Cup-winning goal. The final score?

Montreal 1 @ Detroit 3

Hmmm. I’m not one for predictions, fearless or otherwise, but this is as good as I’ve got:

Pittsburgh 1 @ Detroit 3

Another Day, Another Bettman Point

Ooohhh!! A point! Big whoop! I know exactly how you feel, Gary.

In fact there are too damn many of your points floating around these days. In the last week the Oilers have accrued 3 of them, in consecutive overtime losses to Montreal, Atlanta and Colorado. But that's just the tip of the iceberg; in those same 5 days Tuesday-Saturday, fully half -- 21 of 42 -- NHL games awarded the bogus, er bonus point that gets awarded jointly to any two teams which can't decide a game in regulation. It's the most cockamamie system imaginable.

Of course it’s in a team’s best interest to win their games in regulation, but a club prone to playing a lot of close games – which is the vast majority of them – is better served by playing conservatively and going for overtime. A late game-deciding goal has far greater negative impact on the team allowing it than positive for the team scoring it. Assuming that Bettman points are split 50/50, which of course they are on a league-wide basis, every regulation tie is worth an average of 1.5 points. The law of averages dictates that the late GA means the loss of those 1.5 points, the late GF gains just 0.5. Might as well wait for overtime and go for it then, with your 1 point assured if you fail but full value for a victory given if you succeed.

This system does nothing less than compromise the competitive integrity of the game. If that sounds like a serious charge, it is. When two teams and their coaches reach an in-game situation where the score on the board serves both their interests for the time being, the system is broken.

Gary Bettman and his cronies have failed in their fiduciary capacity as stewards of the game, and the shambles that their gimmicks have made of the standings, the record books, and the very games being played in front of their paying customers cannot be undone.

***

Interesting to look at the cumulative standings of all NHL teams over the past ten seasons.

Season * GP * W * L * T * OTL = Pts. Pct.
-----------------------------------------
1998-99 2214 945-945-324- 00 = 2214 .500

* Introduction of Bettman Point Ver 1.0 *

1999-00 2296 1002-888-292-114 = 2425 .528
2000-01 2460 1078-956-304-122 = 2582 .525
2001-02 2460 1081-960-298-121 = 2581 .525
2002-03 2460 1073-918-314-155 = 2615 .532
2003-04 2460 1060-915-340-145 = 2605 .529

* Introduction of Bettman Point Ver 2.0 *

2005-06 2460 1230-949- 0 -281 = 2741 .557
2006-07 2460 1230-949- 0 -281 = 2741 .557
2007-08 2460 1230-958- 0 -272 = 2732 .555
2008-09 2060 1030-792- 0 -238 = 2298 .558

(2008-09 through Saturday, March 14)

For perspective it begins with the last year of standings sanity, where all games were worth the same two points and teams by definition played .500 hockey against themselves. But in 1999 that changed with the introduction of the Bettman point, awarded to teams that lost games in overtime (or to teams that won them in OT, depending on your interpretation). The idea, or so it was explained at the time, was that teams were playing too conservatively in overtime, hanging on to their one point. A win for the winner, a tie for the loser will put an end to that.

Overtime indeed became more wide-open; the percentage of games actually decided in OT doubled from 24.7% in 1997-98 to 49.7% in 2002-03. How much of that was due to the Bettman Point and how much to the 4-on-4 format that was introduced at the same time cannot be disentangled. The heavy cost, however, was that instead of hanging on in overtime for their one point, coaches started to do so in regulation, often for entire third periods at a time or even longer. And given the “new math” of Gary Bettman’s NHL, frequently both teams would be doing so simultaneously, cuz it was in both their interests. Coaches ain't stupid, and most of them passed Grade 6 arithmetic.

After the lockout – another blight on the historical and statistical continuity of the sport, and the second such which happened on Gary Bettman’s watch – the powers-that-be went a step further and brought in the shootout, thus ensuring that the third point would now be awarded in every game that reached overtime, not just the half or so of them that resulted in an overtime goal. Thus the value of a regulation tie soared from 1 point pre-1983, to an average of 1.00 points during the 15 years that decided overtimes split the points 2-0 and undecided OTs 1-1, to almost 1.25 points during the first variation of the Bettman Point, all the way to 1.50 points in the shootout era.

The results can be seen in the blocks above, which show the league winning percentage jumping in two discrete steps from its natural .500 (1917-99) to about .528 (1999-2004) to about .557 (2005-2009). Key word: “about”, as the median, once a reliable constant, now fluctuates from season to season, indeed from day to day. In past seasons I have tracked this median figure and observed a general upward slope; as the playoffs approach and the points become more dear, OT games become more common. Last year for example, I divided the season into 5 * 246-game segments:

# 3-pt. games * Segment % * YTD % * Mean Pts%

---------------------------------------------

1. * * 39 * * * 15.9% * * * 15.9% * .5396

2. * * 49 * * * 19.9% * * * 17.9% * .5447

3. * * 59 * * * 23.9% * * * 19.9% * .5498

4. * * 65 * * * 26.4% * * * 21.5% * .5539

5. * * 60 * * * 24.4% * * * 22.1% * .5553

While Bettman & Co. delivered on one part of their promise, no more tie results, in reality there are more tie games than ever.

Season * % Ties * % Regulation Ties

-----------------------------------
1917-18 * * 0 % * unknown

1927-28 * 16.8% * unknown
1937-38 * 18.8% * unknown

1947-48 * 18.9% * 18.9%
1957-58 * 16.2% * 16.2%
1967-68 * 17.1% * 17.1%
1977-78 * 18.3% * 18.3%

1987-88 * 11.5% * 17.4%
1997-98 * 15.5% * 20.5%
1998-99 * 14.6% * 20.1%

1999-00 * 12.7% * 22.6%
2000-01 * 12.4% * 22.3%
2001-02 * 12.1% * 22.0%
2002-03 * 12.8% * 25.4%
2003-04 * 13.8% * 25.6%

2005-06 * ----- * 22.8%
2006-07 * ----- * 22.8%
2007-08 * ----- * 22.1%
2008-09 * ----- * 23.1%

The above list takes a sample once per decade, and annually during the Bettman Point era. Pre-1942 I don’t have a reliable source of info on OT results, so don't have a handle on what percentage of games were tied after regulation. Following the elimination of regular season OT due to wartime travel restrictions right through 1983 all games were 60 minutes and a tie was a tie, splitting the (two) points. Roughly 18% of all games ended in ties.

After 1983 the 5-minute overtime started to prune the number of tie results down, even as the number of games tied after 60 rose to about 20% during the dead puck era. But in 1999, the Bettman point was introduced and the number of regulation ties surged to new highs. It has remained high ever since, with the last 9 seasons yielding the 9 highest percentages of the entire sample, with 22-26% of games tied through 60 minutes every season.

***

That extended rant aside, the rules are the rules, and the teams must play within them. How do they apply to the Oilers?

Recent results suggest that the Bettman Point (a.k.a. the “loser point”) has saved the Oilers from what could/should have been a major pratfall in the standings. 1-1-4 = 6 points is much less painful than 1-5, 2 points would be. Getting to overtime has saved our bacon.

It’s what we have done when we get there that is disturbing. The play-for-OT strategy only really works if you can win at least your share of overtime sessions and/or shootouts. I would argue that it’s the “winner point” that is the true Bettman Point, the two points for regulation having been split in the traditional manner of a tie and now only the third, free lunch point that’s up for grabs and awarded to the winner of the mini-game. It’s here where the Oilers have been an epic fail, playing under 11 minutes of overtime the last two weeks and being outscored 4-0. Four goals against in half a period. Yuck.

The Oilers have been outshot in each one of those overtimes and cumaltively by a 9-2 count, so clearly something is amiss. One can start with goaltending: 4 GA on 9 shots is just brutal. Makes one wonder if tired goalie syndrome is likely to manifest itself at the end of a long, tense night. This past week Roli posted a Sv% of .902 in regulation, but only .500 in OT over the three games which included two decidedly weak goals through the 5-hole. Ugh-ly. That said, a team which took two penalties in overtime and couldn't kill either one, allowed one clear breakaway in the dying seconds, and which failed to backcheck effectively (if at all) in their most recent defeat, can't just lay it all on the goaltender.

So the Oilers crawl up the standings, one painful point at a time. Across the league, teams earn on average something over 1.11 points per GP in the Second Bettman Point Era, an average which surged to 1.25 during this recent outbreak of OT affairs. So 1 point a night is the equivalent of hanging on by our fingernails but gradually sliding away. We gotta win some games.

Anniversaries VIII: 50 in 39

It was a magic time. If you didn't live through it, it's hard to comprehend what a record-breaking machine Wayne Gretzky was. He didn't just break records, he destroyed them with a flair for the dramatic. Examples:

-- Gretzky scored his first 1000 points in just 424 games. The second fastest to the mark, Guy Lafleur, needed 720 games. The night Gretzky hit the 1000 mark, he piled in 5 more points as a down payment on the next 1000.

-- On April 9, 1987, Gretzky started the night tied with Jean Beliveau for the most points in the Stanley Cup playoffs, 176. By night's end Gretzky had tied another playoff record, his own mark of 7 points in a playoff game, and was 7 points clear of Beliveau. Oilers beat the Kings 13-3, setting a couple of still-extant team records en route to their first victory in what became their third Stanley Cup.

-- On February 24, 1982, Gretzky broke Phil Esposito's record for goals in a season by scoring his 77th, 78th, and 79th goals in the last seven minutes of the third period. His natural hat trick blew open a 3-3 tie into a 6-3 Oiler celebration, and capped a streak of four consecutive five-point nights for the Great One as he relentlessly overcame Esposito's awesome record with six weeks to spare.

Of all the records, the most spectacular run had to be earlier in that 1981-82 season when Gretzky challenged and ultimately demolished the most fabled record in hockey, Rocket Richard's 50 goals in 50 games. The previous season the great Mike Bossy had equalled Richard's mark which had stood unchallenged for 35 seasons.

It was clear in the fall of '81 that Gretzky had the mark in his sights. After a run of 7 goals in 7 periods in late November, including his second four-goal game of the season, Gretzky reached 31 goals early in Game 26. For the rest of that game and the next four Gretzky slumped, scoring nary a goal -- albeit with 13 (!!) assists -- to fall to just 1 goal ahead of the goal-a-game pace. In the next four games he remained there, scoring exactly one goal in each and reaching 35 goals in 34 games as the Oilers began a five game Crhistmas home stand. It looked like it would be nip and tuck for several more weeks, maybe until Games 49 and 50 in late January.

I was already a big believer in the Great One, predicting to my season ticket mates on opening night that he would score 200 points that season in what developed into an audacious, hellacious bet. Supremely confident as I was in the young man's magic, that prediction ultimately turned out to be conservative (I guessed "only" 80-120-200, whereas he really went 92-120-212 in yet another demolition job not just of records but of all reason). Even I, staunch predictor of a goal-a-game for the season, could never have guessed the dramatics that would be packed into that five-game stand.

What did happen is emblazoned in my memory as one of the most incredible sustained displays of individual domination that I've ever seen. By the time the home stand was over, the Great One had lit the lamp an incredible 15 times, adding a not-inconsequential 10 assists for 25 points. I could cite you his game-by-game numbers chapter and verse, but you can see for yourself courtesy the Hockey Summary Project, linked below:

December 19 - Oilers 9, North Stars 6: 3-4-7
December 20 - Flames 7, Oilers 5: 2-1-3
December 23 - Oilers 6, Canucks 1: 1-3-4
December 27 - Oilers 10, Kings 3: 4-1-5

By December 30, 27 years ago today, Gretz stood at 45 in 38 and it was clear the record was going to fall. As my mates and I made the 7-minute walk from our (still free!) parking spot to the Coliseum, we discussed the upcoming sked and guessed how many more games it would take. Tonight's opponent was no Campbell Conference softie but the perennial powerhouse Philadelphia Flyers. Yet suddenly I blurted out, "You know, it's not impossible, he only needs five" ...

Did I mention this was a magic time? Like George Orr in "The Lathe of Heaven", one merely needed to imagine the dream for it to come true. Every draft prospect seemingly developed into a Hall of Famer, the owner promised and delivered a Stanley Cup within 5 years, and Wayne Gretzky wrote scripts that would have been too silly for Hollywood but which boggled the mind in reality.

And so it was on December 30, 1981, a date that will forever be locked in hockey lore:
December 30 - Oilers 7, Flyers 5: 5-1-6

Gretzky scored twice in the first period, then beat Pete Peeters once more in each of the second and third taking him to 49, before notching his 50th on a dramatic empty netter with just 3 seconds remaining to clinch an incredible 7-5 Oilers victory. His 50th was set up by Grant Fuhr and Glenn Anderson and scored past a diving Bill Barber, Hockey Hall of Famers all, but at that moment, the 20-year-old Gretzky was a colossus who stood alone astride his sport like few -- Babe Ruth, Pele, Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods -- ever have.

Today I had the privilege of watching that entire game for the first time since I attended the actual game. It's disc #1 in the new DVD set of the Oilers' 10 greatest games that showed up under the tree the other day. To see Gretzky's performance in the context of the entire game is much more compelling than just a highlight-reel goal, goal, goal, goal, empty net goal. It is essential viewing for those who didn't live through it but who want to get a sense of what made Gretzky so sensationally special at such a tender age.

In this game, not unlike many others of that magic time, he generated chance after chance after great scoring chance in a transcendent display of hockey genius. I didn't document but I would bet he had at least a dozen shots on net and easily could have had 12 or 15 points if every ten-bell scoring chance went in. Peeters robbed him point blank on at least three occasions, and as usual Gretzky unselfishly dished the puck to the man in the best scoring position, even when he was temprarily "stuck" on 49 goals with time running out. He was an incredibly unselfish player in that respect, talking the talk -- "My dad always told me an assist is as good as a goal" -- and walking the walk. But he was just selfish enough to shoot himself if he was the guy in the best position ... which obviously happened fairly frequently.

Gretzky scored an NHL record 10 hat tricks in that 92-goal season, a record that has been equalled only once, by Gretzky himself in his 87-goal season two years later. He had at least one assist in all ten of those games, in fact he scored at least five points in all ten. No "soft" hat tricks like, say, 3-0-3 for the Great One; he scored goals and points in bunches.

The Great One also set a modern record during that Philly game of four, 4-goal games in one season; again a record he equalled two years later but nobody else has approached since the days of Joe Malone. Gretzky established yet a third separate mark by being the only player in the history of the game to notch consecutive games of 4+ goals, a feat even he accomplished just this once ... while under the heat of attacking, and demolishing, the greatest single record in the sport.

Anniversaries VII: Heritage Classic -- Saturday

Five years ago this weekend Edmonton hosted the NHL’s first outdoor game. This lifelong fan was one of 57,167 people in attendance that day, but my experiences over thathockey weekend were in some ways entirely unique. I think it’s a story worth (re)telling. Part 2 of 2 follows.


Saturday, November 22, 2003. I had really wanted to go to the Heritage Classic from the day it was announced. An historic occasion for a self-styled hockey historian who has already experienced first-hand more than his share. Yet all fall I had done nothing about it, not even entering the lottery as the ticket requests piled into the Oilers' office by the hundreds of thousands. I can't really afford it, I rationalized, but maybe something will just fall into my lap. Somehow I remained sanguine, strangely confident that somehow it would work out. When Val told me about the CBC contest, I just knew I would win -- and typically I'm a "glass-half-empty" type when it comes to foretelling the future. Even when I was down to the equivalent of pulling my goalie in the trivia game, I maintained my composure. I felt that the contest was for people just like me: the hockey-is-in-my-blood fans who could say "Thanks for the memories" and actually remember. So I felt I deserved to win those tickets and somehow justice would prevail. Of course, my end of the bargain would be to share my experience with those who might share my passion if not my luck on this occasion.

Came the day, and I awoke with said tickets having miraculously materialized only hours earlier. Game day temperature hovered between -16 and -20° C., with a "freshening" breeze from the SE. The promise of a warm-and-fuzzy experience was sure to be challenged on at least one front. Specifically, a cold front. But in a way I welcomed the cold as a factor which would make the occasion more memorable, an Outdoors-in-Canadian-Winter experience.

While the Oilers first NHL game -- whose ticket stub paved the way to this one -- was held on my birthday, the Heritage Classic itself was held on my wife's. (Some would call this a sign.) Unselfish person and loving mother that she is -- not to mention practical about the Great Outdoors in Friggin' November -- she graciously passed on her opportunity so that our son could attend, and spent "her" day mostly alone. She had seen hundreds of games with me in the glory years, and was happy to remember "the boys" as they were. Kevin, meanwhile, had heard the stories (more than once, in some cases) but never saw the team with his own eyes, the Gretzky sale having been completed in his first year.

Kevin and I prepared like tens of thousands of others for an extended outdoor stint. With my cold-weather night-time observing experience and collected layers of clothing, perhaps I was better prepared than many: briefs, thermal socks, two pairs wool socks, two full pairs of longjohns, outer pants, turtleneck, two hoodies, snowmobile suit, Oiler sweater, parka, Sorel boots, wool gloves covered by heavy wool gunner mitts, neck warmer, thick black cloth baseball hat, four hoods, sleeping bag. A thermos of hot coffee for me and of cider for Kevin, and off we trundled like a pair of Michelin Men to the Park'N'Ride. After a few nervous moments outside the stadium seeing a huge line-up awaiting security, I found that they were passing people through very efficiently indeed, and we were able to find out seats just as they began to introduce the so-called megastars. Perfect timing.

Commonwealth Stadium was the place to be that cold November Saturday, providing an interesting perspective on a few things. Seen at a greater distance than I'm used to -- and make no mistake, these were relatively excellent seats on Row 44, just below the underhang -- the games had a surreal element. I saw it as an event, whereas usually my attention is entirely focussed on the action between the boards.

What an event it was! It had a very Winter Carnival-type feel. I have been to many dozens of games in Commonwealth Stadium, starting with the Games themselves, but I have never, ever been there in the winter. Do we really just leave it sit there unused for half the year?

The experience of watching the timeworn rituals of hockey in the familiar-yet-strange setting of Commonwealth Stadium was like a dream, where context twisted into bizarre visions of unreality. The usual green floor of Commonwealth was replaced by a broad valley of brilliantly-lit white; an island ice rink surrounded by a lake of snow. While utterly appropriate to the occasion of the first outdoor game, the "lake" seemed to act as a buffer between the fans and the participants; seen at an odd, flattish angle the ice surface was seemingly suspended in space, the standard setting of spectators in surround-sound seats strangely sequestered. And my normally sharp sense of time was skewed in mysterious ways, as the utterly modern merged with the ageless.

The challenges of playing outdoors were as old as the game itself, yet utterly new to most of the participants. While a record audience of nearly 3 million viewers watched innovative camera angles on Hockey Night in Canada's first high-definition TV broadcast, to us in the distant stands the action was difficult to follow, the puck the size of a pixel when it was visible at all. One learned to follow it by the context of the play and the players; if, for example, Eric Brewer was skating in a certain direction, one could be sure the puck was going in another.

But all that said, the stands were the place to be, where one could observe the action unfolding live in something close to four dimensions, no matter how strangely warped. From that perspective one could focus less on the hockey game and reflect on Hockey, the Game. Or as Peter Gzowski put it, the Game of Our Lives. The patterns, the passing, the pounding, the poise-under-pressure, the performance art, the passion play.

In many ways the fans were the big story. Layered up as we were, we wedged ourselves together like rowsful of Dave Hunters. Not everybody stuck it out for the whole six hours, but a significant majority did. It was a wonderful celebration of the game of hockey, and simply of being Canadian. One just had to listen to the 57,000-voice Commonwealth Stadium Choir's heartfelt rendition of "O Canada" to recognize that. Normally a reluctant participant in flag-waving and territory-marking, I was surprised to hear my own voice rising to join the throng.

Back to the surreal: the legends game in particular had a dream-like quality, with the perception of both time and space seemingly distorted. For one thing it was a low-scoring game, hardly an Oiler trademark. For all that I had seen the core of the 80s Oilers play some 500 live games, they appeared for this one in their unfamiliar road blues. The Canadiens were wearing a weird sort of photonegative of the famed bleu, blanc, et rouge which made number identification almost impossible. I could see on the big screen suspended on a giant crane at the south end, that the sweaters sported the familiar "CH" (for "Classique Heritage"?).

But with due respect to the greatest franchise in the NHL's long history, it was not the Habs most of us had gone to see. Too many of les anciens glorieux are unfortunately a little more anciens than glorieux. They dominated the league for decades by passing the torch from one generation to the next. Many of the greats have long since died, some famously during their playing days (Georges Vézina, Howie Morenz), some famously in retirement (Rocket Richard), others in obscurity (Doug Harvey, Toe Blake). The majority of living greats are simply too old to participate in an event like this. Their last great team was a quarter century ago, a fully mature group of stars mostly in their 30s at a time that Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier were hitting the pro ranks in the World Hockey Association at the tender age of 17. Unlike the Habs, the Oilers developed all of their great players almost simultaneously, with the entire core of stars being within a couple of years in age. Today, this meant in their young 40s, far younger than almost all of Montreal's legends.

The view of my old favourites was refracted by the prism of time which had eroded their skills today, but which shone in my mind like yesterday. I couldn't read their numbers easily either, but had no trouble identifying any of them through posture, skating stride, mannerisms. I'm sure I could identify Lee Fogolin coming off the bench during a stoppage at 1000 yards: the stooped shoulders and laboured but purposeful stride are still unmistakable.

Familiar plays and patterns occasionally emerged, albeit in slow motion as hard-won muscle memory fought aging legs and a puck in serious need of retraining. For every change on the fly, there was the new Oilers' right defenceman trying to hustle across to his side of the ice to defend against yet another odd-man rush; and boy, do I remember nights like that. No mistaking Paul Coffey making the big turn at his own blueline, his powerful cross-over strides morphing from backwards to lateral to full-steam-ahead, taking a pass in full stride, blasting though the neutral zone and wide on the overmatched defenceman before making a backhand centring pass which barely failed; the puck turned over but Coffey had already used his considerable momentum to round the net and glide effortlessly back into defensive position. Obviously that was Wayne Gretzky hunching over the puck for the exactly correct number of milliseconds before (trying to) unselfishly dishing it off to the man in the best position. Only Glenn Anderson could lean at that impossible angle, defying the laws of gravity while taking the puck on the shortest path to the goalmouth. That had to be Charlie Huddy making a shrewd neutral zone pinch, causing a turnover and taking advantage of his position and momentum to lumber along the right boards as the fourth man on the rush, take another pass, dish it off, duck back to the point. There was Randy Gregg, tall and poised, making a crisp breakout pass; and there was Kevin Lowe, tall and poised, making another. To some they may have looked as similar as two tall pine trees, but to me who has seen each of them make the same play literally thousands of times, they were as unique as my own brothers.

While many "experts" in the (eastern) media viewed Mark Messier's participation as frivolous or worse, fact is Oilers would have been incomplete without the presence of perhaps their most dominant personality. So what if he was still an active player? To me it was the night-in night-out grind with the Rangers at the age of 42 that's the anomaly, not playing with his old buddies who have played out the string in a more conventional time frame. And for an original WHA fan like myself, in Oiler silks Messier embodied the only surviving remnants of the old league; by 2003 the Edmonton native was the only active NHL player who played in the WHA, and the Oilers its only remaining team.

There were of course, several retirees in the game who played in the WHA: Gretzky, Semenko, Chipperfield, Hunter, Linseman, Gingras, Napier, to name a few. But as usual, the Oilers chose to bury that part of their history without a trace. I don't understand it.

As for the Habs, they played hard, and they played well. But beyond Lafleur, Robinson, Lapointe, and Shutt, many of the big names were missing: no Gainey, no Cournoyer, no Savard, no Dryden, to name a few stalwarts of the last great Habs team of the late 1970s. The roster was sprinkled with Stanley Cup champions from the "fluke" Cups of 1986 and '93, good teams with great goaltending. The masked face of that team, Patrick Roy, was nowhere to be seen, but there was no shortage of solid but uncompelling skaters like Carbonneau, Muller, Ludwig, Pepé Lemieux. The Habs did what those Habs always did, play positional hockey to close down space and time on the puck carrier. Not exactly the "firewagon hockey" for which the Habs once were revered, more like the "starve the fire before it catches hockey" of the modern NHL. So in a way they were the exact wrong opponent to let the Oilers put on a show. Time after time a still-imaginative Oiler passing play would die just before the finishing shot.

The view of the ice was further distorted by shimmering haloes of exhaled air around the players' heads, nature's elements in an unnaturally natural setting. Occasionally the puck would crack against the boards in a distinctly outdoors sort of way, and one had to remind oneself that these were some of the greatest athletes this city, this country, this game has ever seen, playing shinny on a cold Saturday afternoon in November. They were having a ball, and so were we in the stands. To see them pick up the ice scrapers between periods teleported me to the neighbourhood rink with my seven-year-old son, or as a seven-year-old myself, holding the handle of the shovel under my chin, trying to keep up with my brothers in the crisp air of Tipton Park. No doubt other minds wandered to more distant eras and lakes and rivers of a truly timeless, Canadian pastime.

A personal highlight was attending with my son. Kevin loved to play the game but is ambivalent about watching it. It might be the fastest team sport in the world, but it's positively glacial compared to video games. And my teenager's usual response rate is about one grunt per four questions asked. But midway through the megastars game, right out of the clear cold blue, Kevin volunteered "This is just great!" And beamed as only he can, right through the neck warmer.

A few other snapshots from the day's activities will stand the test of time. As an erstwhile goalie, I will cherish a couple provided by the custodians of the cord cottage. One was a remarkable period of shutout hockey provided by the recent Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Grant Fuhr, capped by a lightning quick glove grab of a rocket off the still-formidable stick of Stephane Richer. The replay on the big screen was perhaps the day's defining moment for TV viewers: the modern net cam view of Fuhr in classic hockey card pose, silhouetted against a crisp blue sky. The other was Jose Théodore's toque, a practical fashion statement which for this hockey fan made yet another link across time. In 2002 Théodore became the second Habs' goalie to win the Hart Trophy. The first, 40 years earlier in the season before I started to watch hockey, was noted worrywart Jacques Plante, who famously used to knit toques as a stress reliever. Legend does not relate whether he actually wore one in an NHL game, but on this special day his spirit lived on.

The regular "league game" was something of an anti-climax to the megastars, because in many respects it was just another game. Historic, to be sure, and interesting to watch the players deal with the challenges, but I found I had to work rather harder than usual to follow the game at the intellectual level. Two points were on the line, but who won or lost was ultimately unimportant. A lesson which I am still learning at this advanced stage of my life.

Was it perfect? Certainly not. The utter lack of crowd control made the concourse a seething (in more ways than one) mass of humanity, where the destination eventually became a not-so-simple return to one's seat, leaving one to contemplate alternative uses of an empty thermos. The main game could have been better, and had a happier outcome for the frozen faithful. The Oilers megastars could have won 7-5, not 2-0. Jaroslav Pouzar could have been there. Don Cherry could have been booed off the field, or at least greeted with stony silence. (Some dreams remain forever beyond reach.)

And there were omissions. If they'd put me in charge, I would have added a final touch: to announce the home town in the introduction of every player and in both games, from Edmonton to Espoo, St. John's to St. Petersburg. This would have served as eloquent testimony that the Game of Our Lives is proudly Canadian in origin but now stretches 'round the globe at those latitudes where ice forms naturally.

The dreamlike state in which I experienced this event was entirely appropriate. In earlier, happier days, it had been the dream of a lifetime for a die-hard hockey fan to witness first-hand such a team as the 1980s Edmonton Oilers, without doubt the most exciting team in NHL history, featuring the greatest genius to ever play the game. To have this one last chance to see them make history yet again was for me, what the chance to play together may have been for them.

Clogging up the ice -- an NHL directive

It's axiomatic that "the ice is smaller" these days. Players are both bigger and faster, taking away both time and space -- precious commodities that even the cleverest scorers need to make their mark. While the dimensions of the NHL rink have remained constant at 200'x85', the growth of the 'average' player has been ongoing, and rapid. (I have no stats, but I'd guess and extra inch and 10 pounds every 15-20 years) A player who begins his career a big man will be much closer to the mid-point by the time he's finished.

What has the NHL done to combat this? The league's history of rule changes with respect to manpower situations is more than a little revealing. My trusty NHL Official Guide and Record Book (Major Rule Changes, pp. 10-11) confirms (most of) a sorry trend that has been occurring throughout my lifetime of increasing 'free substitution' for penalized players, resulting in more players on the ice:
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1925-26: 'Delayed penalty rules introduced. Each team must have a minimum of four players on the ice at all times.' OK, I'll admit this one wasn't during my lifetime. A team with three or more penalties can only be two men short.

Consequences: No more 5v2 or 4v2 powerplays. Referees become terrified of calling that third penalty no matter what, because it means a long boring conversation with an uncomprehending local timekeeper about who can come out of the box when.
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1956-57: 'Player serving a minor penalty allowed to return to the ice when a [powerplay] goal is scored by opposing team.' The 'Montreal Canadiens Rule', meant to somewhat derail the Habs' devastating powerplay. I can probably pinpoint the exact occasion that precipitated this change, which is mentioned elsewhere in the Guide - actually, in the Record Book: November 5, 1955, Jean Béliveau scores three powerplay goals in 44 seconds. All three are assisted by Bert Olmstead. (Both are second, to Bill Mosienko and Gus Bodnar respectively, who combined for a hat trick in just 21 seconds in 1952, although I'm almost certain no powerplay was involved that time.) By season's end Béliveau leads the league in goals (47) and points (88); Olmstead in assists (a record 56). More importantly the emerging Habitant powerhouse wins the Prince of Wales Trophy (then the equivalent of the President's Trophy) by an astonishing 24 points before rolling to their first of five straight Cups. They're too good! They must be stopped at all costs. Let's fiddle with the rules.

Consequences: Players who might think twice about taking what the soccer commentators call a 'professional foul' to prevent a goal-scoring opportunity no longer need to factor in that the penalty might cost his team more than the imminent goal. Now it's a 'good' penalty to take away even a 20% scoring opportunity and turn matters over to an 85% PK unit. The worst result either way is one goal against, a break-even proposition. And when a PP goal is scored, there's one more player allowed on the ice.
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1966-67: 'Substitution allowed on coincident major penalties.' A biggie. Before this every fight resulted in a five-minute 4v4. Better yet, a multi-player brawl could result in five minutes of 3v3 action. It was a wonderful self-cleaning mechanism for ugly games - the ice opened up right away, and it became a skill and skating game far away from the boards. The action was often pulsating; a failed 2-on-1 at one end could lead to an immediate 2-on-1 going the other way. Mobile defencemen like Pierre Pilote and speedy two-way forwards like Dave Keon and Henri Richard excelled.

Consequences: Two to four more players on the ice for long stretches of 5 or even 10 minutes after fights/brawls. 3v3 went the way of the dinosaurs. No wait a minute, the dinosaurs were alive and well, running the NHL even then. 3v3 went the way of the unicorn. The dwindling few of us who remember that kind of open-ice magic are written off as demented whiners for the 'good old days', or more likely, ignored completely.
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Late 1970s: (not in the book, so apparently not a 'major' change. I'll paraphrase): Substitution allowed on coincidental minors where manpower is already unequal. A 4v3 powerplay was (and remains) a far better opportunity than a 5v4, so if the team on the powerplay could somehow induce coincidental penalties they would greatly improve their chances of scoring. Call this the 'Philadelphia Flyers Rule', because the B.S. Bullies were renowned for this tactic. Their willing and able accomplices, the referees, aided and abetted their cause by being far more willing to call simultaneous penalties than stand alone penalties in a scrum. The obvious question, 'which foul causes the coincidental minors, the initiation or retaliation?', is never addressed. The solution of dealing with Philly's bullying tactics when a man up by issuing them the only penalty in a needless scrum, apparently never occurs to tiny dinosaur brains.

Consequences: Fewer 4v3 powerplays, no matter how legitimate and even the altercation might be. Two more players on the ice in such situations.
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1985-86: 'Substitutions allowed in the event of coincidental minor penalties.' Another biggie. The 'Edmonton Oilers Rule' was a Calgary plot masterminded by Cliff Fletcher to slow down the Oilers, no matter what the cost to the game. I was outraged at the time that it was proposed, apoplectic when it got adopted, incensed and appalled when it actually worked (Calgary won a memorable playoff series that very year, largely by gooning it up without fear of open ice consequences), and I remain to this day adamantly opposed to this idea which attacked one of the fundamentals of the game. Like the Canadiens three decades before, the Oilers found a way to continue to dominate, even without their (ahem) 'unfair advantage'. (They still had their other unfair advantage, better players.) But the game suffered dearly.

Consequences: Way more players on the ice, two guys for two minutes every time the rule is invoked (which is frequently). For seven years I undertook the exercise of figuring at the first face-off after coincidental penalties, which players wouldn't be on the ice if the penalties had to be served, and invariably it was the 'third guy high', defensive forwards, the guys whose bloody job is to clog up the ice. The Oilers, who gave up tons of goals 4v4 but scored even more, could no longer turn every missed two-man attack into a 3-on-2 (typically Coffey with either Gretzky-Kurri or Messier-Anderson) going the other way. That's much too exciting. They're too good! They must be stopped at all costs. Let's fiddle with the rules.
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1992-93: 'No substitutions allowed in the event of coincidental minor penalties called when both teams are at full strength.' A lame attempt to 'fix' the mistake of 1985-86. (The two rule changes, radical and corrective, should be considered as one moderate change IMO)

Consequences: A significant improvement, but in the NHL's typically half-assed manner it only goes partway. It results in 4v4 opportunities when exactly two minors are called. If three occur, the powerplay is not a 4v3, it's the sameoldsameold 5v4. When two penalties occur to each team, it's no longer two minutes of 3v3, or in the event of 4 minutes to one player and 2 to two different opponents two minutes of 4v3 one way followed by both guys jumping out of the box simultaneously to make it a 5v4 the other way. All of those manpower options have been excised from the game. I don't think I have seen 20 minutes of 3v3 action in the last 20 years, and I watch my share of hockey.
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1999-2000: Again paraphrasing a truly minor change (goes to intent, Your Honour). If a team killing a 3v4 penalty in overtime takes a second penalty, the other team gets to ADD a player. While a necessary tinker to the 4v4 OT rule also brought in that season, only in Gary Bettman's NHL would a penalty result in more players on the ice than before.

In Bettman's 'defence', all the other rule changes above preceded his It-Only-Seems-Like-Forever tenure. On the (criminal) 'offence' side of Bettman's ledger, he was in a 'more is more' mood that year, awarding a free point to all teams who could score in overtime, without commensurate cost to the team that allowed said overtime goal. That and 4v4 action sure opened up overtime, at the heavy cost of much more clogging of the ice in regulation time (which of course is at least 92.3% of every game, but hey, he's a basketball guy, who needs an exciting game when you can have an exciting finish?)

Consequences: Very little, two-man advantages are rare in overtime. But this wrinkle exposes the lack of continuity in the 'gimmick' of 4v4 overtime, as Bettman & Co. toy with the fundamentals of the game.
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Commentary: The game of hockey was originally designed so that teams have to face multiple manpower situations: 5v5, 5v4, 5v3, 4v5, 4v4, 4v3, 3v5, 3v4, and 3v3, plus various goalie-out scenarios. But with the exception of the partial fix of 1992, all substitution rules (including a few I didn't mention that gradually reduced the manpower disadvantage consequences of a match penalty) have been in the direction of more players on the ice, not fewer, including the virtual eradication of the most exciting variation of even-but-not-full strength, the 3v3 . The NHL is clogging up its own ice with its short-sighted league policies and knee-jerk 'they must be stopped at all costs' rule changes.

The greatest fear in Gary Bettman's NHL is that rather than look for precedents within the league's own history -- with which the league's current brain trust [sic] is frightfully out of touch -- they will attempt some new massive "fix" like full-time 4v4 hockey to open up the ice. To which my response would be "No, no, a thousand times no!" There is nothing like good old-fashioned 5v5 hockey, and the permanent loss of a player might virtually eliminate the physical aspect of the game that most fans love. (When was the last time you saw a big hit in overtime?) I'd just like to see the penalty substitution rules revisited so the full variety of manpower situations would occur more frequently.

Anniversaries IV: The First Gretzky Sale

Thirty years ago today, on November 2 1978, the hockey landscape in Edmonton changed forever.

The World Hockey Association had begun its seventh and ultimately final season under the usual cloud of controversy. The previous summer overtures at a merger with the NHL had been rebuffed, and the Rebel League's struggling southern franchises responded with an unprecedented raid of underage talent. in 1977-78 the Birmingham Bulls had signed Ken Linseman as an underage test case, but now the gloves were off. The Bulls signed goalie Pat Riggin, defenders Craig Hartsburg, Rob Ramage, and Gaston Gingras, and forwards Michel Goulet and Rick Vaive. The Cincinnati Stingers snapped up Mike Gartner. And the Indianapolis Racers snagged the biggest prize of all, the 17-year-old wunderkind Wayne Gretzky, fully three years before he was eligible to be drafted into the NHL. The Racers' flamboyant owner Nelson Skalbania penned "the Kid" to a seven-year, $1.75 MM contract that shook the hockey world.

Gretzky was already famous for his scoring exploits as an amateur, coming to national attention at a very young age by posting unbelievable totals during his minor hockey days. The previous year he had taken the OHA by storm, scoring 70 goals and 112 assists in just 63 games as a 16-year-old, finishing a close second in league scoring just behind 19-year-old Bobby Smith, who would go on to be the #1 draft in the NHL. Gretzky was almost singlehandedly responsible for raising the profile of the fledgling World Junior tournament with a dominant performance, leading the tourney in scoring as its youngest player with 8 goals and 9 assists. A superior Soviet squad won a critical showdown en route to the gold medal, with 19-year-old captain Slava Fetisov personally responding to the challenge of shutting down the young Canadian star.

Despite the addition of the young hotshot, the Racers struggled out of the gate and at the gate. Gretzky had a slow start, but famously scored his first professional goal in a home game against the Oilers, and added a second just eight seconds later. (I still remember Rod Phillips' description from Market Square Arena.) The Racers were not scheduled to visit Edmonton until November 17, a date I had circled on my pocket schedule the day it was released.

Out of the blue on November 2, the incredible happened. Word filtered down that the Oilers' owner Peter Pocklington had completed a major deal with his former partner Skalbania to acquire Gretzky along with teammates Ed Mio and Peter Driscoll for the princely sum of $850,000. It was an out-and-out purchase with no players going the other way.

Such one-sided transactions were not uncommon in the Rebel League. Financial difficulties, bad debts and folding franchises were the rule rather than the exception throughout the league's turbulent history. Two years earlier the Oilers had briefly acquired seven members of the Minnesota Fighting Saints (a.k.a. the "Folding Saints") including Dave Keon and Johnny McKenzie, only to have the deal mostly fall through when the famous vets turned up their noses at Western Canada and forced a second deal to New England Whalers. So while the first reaction to the Gretzky purchase was overjoy, the second was trepidation; would Edmonton be snubbed yet again?

By the suppertime news, Gretzky was already in town, after an eventful charter flight in which the destination was unknown while Skalbania dickered with Michael Gobuty of the Jets (who famously chickened out of a game of backgammon) before closing the sale with Pocklington. Eddie Mio paid for the flight on his own credit card ... such was the precarious state of finances in the WHA.

The following night Gretzky made his Edmonton debut, scoring his first Oiler goal in a game I was obliged to miss due to a prior commitment which took me out of town. The Oilers themselves then went on the road, returning, ironically enough, for that game against the Racers that I had been so eagerly anticipating. To see the hotshot in the home whites was too good to be true.

I couldn't take my eyes off the Kid that night, in fact I quickly fell into the long-term habit of keeping an eye on him every moment he was on the ice. He did odd things, standing off to the side of puck battles and then pouncing on the loose biscuit, or occupying traditional dead zones of the ice and picking off stray passes and shootarounds. His anticipation was otherworldly, his stick skills magical from the get-go. His skating, not so much. But you could see from the stuff that he tried, that when he got stronger on his feet he would be hard to stop.

The Oilers cruised to a 4-0 first-period lead against the overmatched Racers, with Gretzky popping a garbage goal on a rebound. From there the game became a desultory 6-1 affair, with one shining exception. Attacking my end of the rink on a second period powerplay, the Oilers were going precisely nowhere and the Racers iced the puck again and again. Gretzky was growing frustrated and his face flushed (something my season ticket buddies and I soon learned was a VERY good sign). By the second or third icing Gretzky, playing the point, turned on the burners and raced down to his own end to retrieve the puck. He slapped his stick on the ice a couple of times to encourage Dave Dryden to simply leave the puck for him, and by the time he circled back with it he was in top gear. Crossing the Racer line he encountered the two penalty killing forwards, slipped the puck past them and avoided a check by leaping and spinning in the air, a move which I don't think I ever saw again. (Turned out he had a few others.) Landing on his feet and through the hole, Gretzky took a couple of steps, wound up and leaned into a slapshot which found the top corner of the net. I will never forget the the moment of silence that it took the people in the crowd to process what they had just seen, not just the whizzy move but the end result, the puck in the net, the red light on, just out of nowhere. Then the place, all 8 or 10,000 of us, erupted with a frenzy of cheering unlike anything I had experienced to that point. What a moment.

Gretzky went on to score 110 points, finish third in WHA scoring and decisively win the Rookie of the Year award against a bumper crop while leading the Oilers to a first place finish and a berth in the Avco Cup finals. While some NHL chauvinists ascribed his success to weak competition, fact was those 110 points remained the Great One's lowest output as a professional until 1992-93.

One other highlight of that first game didn't come into focus until much later. After trading three major assets to the Oilers the Racers had holes to fill on the roster. One of the newcomers was another 17-year-old, a local lad named Mark Messier. Thus I had my first view of the two most famous Edmonton Oilers on the very same night.

The unpolished Messier did little that night to really catch our eyes. He was lightly enough regarded that he lasted into the third round of the following year's NHL Entry Draft, long after his WHA contemporaries Ramage, Gartner, Vaive, Hartsburg, Goulet, Gingras and Riggin were selected. Indeed the WHA itself finally gained entry into the NHL that summer, as merger negotiations were finally successful. Gretzky himself avoided the draft altogether, having been signed by the crafty Pocklington to a personal services contract, and finessed into the NHL as an Oiler. Within five years Gretzky, Messier and Pocklington completed a rapid ascent to the ultimate goal, the Stanley Cup. But that's a story -- more than one actually! -- for another day.

Anniversaries III: The Man in Black

Not all memorable occasions are happy ones. They tend to run the gamut of emotions, something reflected admirably in our iconic national sport.

Some occasions can run that gamut all on their own. Such was the case twenty years ago yesterday when The Great One made his first appearance at Northlands Coliseum in the guise of The Enemy. By the fluke of the schedule there had been no Indianapolis-at-Edmonton game in October, 1978 (thirty years ago this month, in the scant days before the First Gretzky Sale). A decade later, The Kid cum Great One had played over 500 games in the Coliseum wearing the home whites of the Oilers or, occasionally, Team Canada, but never once in opposition silks.

It was an almost surreal event, and as a result (?) my memories of the details of the game itself are rather more shadowy than usual. I remember more the richly complex overtones of resonant emotions. It was a visual confirmation of the Worst possible news, namely the Second Gretzky Sale that had gone down ten weeks earlier. An annual rumour involving the Rangers had become a harsh reality involving, of all teams, the Kings. Since the last time I had spotted Wayne in the flesh, receiving the Stanley Cup and the Conn Smythe Trophy and beginning the tradition of the team photograph, I had seen -- all on TV -- the wedding to the Hollywood actress, the tears at Molson House when "I promised Mess I wouldn't do this", the happier donning of a (thankully, renovated) Kings jersey hours later, his first game in his new home in which he scored on his first shift and set up three later goals in a laugher over the Wings. I was laughing too ... when I wasn't crying. My loyalties were now divided more than at any time since the WHA Oilers and the NHL Leafs vied for my support. I had been and remained (and remain) a huge Gretzky fan. Having seen virtually every one of those 500+ home games I am convinced he is the closest thing I have personally witnessed to pure genius, in any walk of life.

So I looked forward to October 19, 1988, as the first in a suddenly dwindling supply of remaining opportunities to witness this genius in the flesh. I felt compelled to the rink early, went down to the Kings end in plenty of time to witness the pregame skate, and was astonished to find the whole lower sections full, everybody standing, everybody gawking, everybody seemingly silent and expectant as if the high priest was about to enter. The cheer when the Great One emerged was the loudest I had heard in a pregame warmup since unlikely hero Andy Moog led the 1981 Oilers out of the tunnel with an equally unlikely 2-0 series lead over the Montreal Canadiens. Every eye in the house followed Gretzky as he circled around, obviously a little uncomfortable in his erstwhile home, looking very out-of-place in black. For a few minutes Gretzky hunched by the boards just on the Kings side of centre, and a few Oilers -- Messier, Kurri, Fuhr -- "happened" to take turns doing the same.

The game started at a frenetic pace, several minutes without a stoppage with spectacular end-to-end action. The crowd oohed and ahhed with the intensity of a Stanley Cup game or one of that era's "exhibition games" against Russians. After a number of near misses/great stops at both ends, Glenn Anderson -- ever one to rise to the occasion -- scored a beauty to open the scoring, and give the Oiler faithful a chance to express who they were really cheering for. The roar shook the building.

The Oilers new captain, Mark Messier, was never one to shrink from an occasion, and he dominated the game with (IIRC) 2 goals and 2 assists, leading the Oil to an entertaining 8-6 victory. He also landed a relatively gentle but no less meaningful body check that bounced the Great One on his great ass.

Gretzky himself had what I considered a below-average (for him!) performance, nonetheless garnering 2 assists, a magic trick I had seen him perform many times before. No doubt having his old linemates Jari and Esa on the line defending against him was a difficult new challenge for Wayne, but my impression was that his own rich blend of emotions on that occasion left him feeling relatively ambivalent towards that particular game. I certainly felt that way.

During the first intermission I was briefly interviewed by a roving reporter from the Edmonton Journal (could have been Staples for all I know) who was polling fans for their impressions. My take: "Have you ever experienced one of those unsettling dreams, the ones that are correct in almost every detail, but somehow something is not quite right?"

After its explosive start, the game on the ice became secondary to The Game, the one that had changed forever with the stateside departure of the van Gogh of hockey. On this night at least he was Dali, his apparition as surreal as a soft watch. I felt a deep sense of personal loss, even as I valued tonight's game featuring Gretzky as a visitor. For fans almost anywhere else, I realized, that was as good as it ever got. We still had four home games a year against the Kings, and the two teams were to meet in the playoffs for the next four years running until the Oilers roster became unrecognizable. And I knew I would always have my memories of his remarkable contributions to one of hockey's great dynasties, memories which I (mostly) cherish to this day.

For me it took a full year to let go, a remarkable year that included Edmonton hosting the 1989 All-Star game with Gretzky naturally the captain of the home Western Conference team and almost as naturally copping MVP honours; the Kings eliminating the Oilers in the playoffs with Wayne himself scoring two goals in Game 7; the unveiling of the statue before a partisan Coliseum crowd in the summer of '89; and the 1851 game that October detailed here. All were bittersweet, perhaps none more so than that unreal night twenty years ago when hockey's greatest hero returned wearing a black hat.

Anniversaries I: A special time

As the Oilers celebrate their 30th anniversary (sic) season, this is as good a year as any to reflect on our local franchise's storied past. Hey, it's not like we old geezers need much of a reason to remember the Good Old Days (TM). Especially an old geezer with a new blog.

This week marks a number of important anniversaries in the Oilers NHL history, several of which involve the two gentlemen pictured above. The two are irrevocably linked, from their start in the World Hockey Association (that’s a Cincinnati Stingers uni in the upper left pic) to the glory days scoring, breaking records, and winning together in Edmonton (clockwise from upper right :) to winding down their careers in Manhatten to their current status as the top two scorers in the history of the NHL. WHA prehistory notwithstanding, those points starting counting for keeps in October of 1979.

October 13 : It was my best birthday present ever. I had followed the NHL closely since the age of 7, but circumstance had precluded my ever attending a single NHL game, so what was a first for my adopted home of Edmonton was a first for me as well. Any doubts that the NHL was Really Here were instantly dispelled at the familiar sight of the elegant red-and-white unis of the visitors. The Detroit Red Wings were a fitting opponent whose own storied history had been intertwined with Edmonton's, as the Edmonton Flyers of the Western Hockey League had been a feeder team of the Red Wings for many years. In the year of my birth, both Red Wings and Flyers had won the "double", champions of both regular season and playoffs in their respective leagues. That Flyers' squad featured the likes of Glenn Hall, Al Arbour, Norm Ullman, Johnny Bucyk and Bronco Horvath, perhaps the greatest team to grace the River City. Until now.

But the new hometown heroes were no longer a farm team in a lower tier, they had entered the League as equals and ended the night with a 3-3 tie to prove it. Goals by personal favourite B.J.MacDonald staked Oilers to 1-0 and 2-1 leads, but the Red Wings rallied late and were poised to send the crowd home disappointed. Lightning struck late in the third, when the Oilers' 18-year-old rookie Mark Messier made a centring pass which glanced off the skate of a Wings defender and past the helpless goalie, giving the Oilers a well-deserved split in the points. It was the first goal of Messier's NHL career, and already one more than I had expected from the loosey-goosey youngster at the start of training camp.

October 14: After waiting 24 years for my first NHL game, I only needed wait 24 hours for my second, when the Oilers faced a new geographic rival, the Vancouver Canucks. The emotions and pageantry of opening night had worn off to some extent, but dammit even the Canucks were an NHL team and it was never too early to start laying the beat on them. In a wide-open, sloppy affair the Canucks took a 4-3 lead into the late stages, but this time the Oilers' "other" 18-year-old rookie, the ballyhooed Wayne Gretzky, emerged as the hero, scoring on a backhand from the edge of the crease with the goalie pulled to knot the count at 4-4. It was Gretzky's own first NHL goal, one day later but seven days younger than Messier. The official time of the goal was one of those spooky coincidences of foreshadowing: 18:51.

October 15: Flash forward 10 years and a day, to October 15, 1989, nineteen years ago today. In an impossibly-short period Gretzky had overtaken the mountainous career scoring totals that had taken the fabulous Gordie Howe 26 seasons to compile. As karma had it, the Great One – now a member of the Los Angeles Kings – was scheduled to visit his old stomping grounds early in the new season, just as he was poised to shatter Howe’s mark. Mister Hockey himself was in the building to witness history.

In the first period Gretzky tied the record with an unremarkable second assist on a powerplay goal, but he remained stuck on 1850 for the rest of the game. As time wound down with the Oilers leading by one, the loyalties of this fan never felt so divided. I wanted the Oilers to win, as always, but dammit, I wanted to see that of all records. I had personally witnessed close to a thousand of those points; I wanted to see the big one.

It unfolded like déjà vu, with Gretzky emerging as the Ultimate Hero, scoring on a backhand from the edge of the crease with goalie pulled to knot the count at 4-4. Many/most in the crowd rose from our seats in the manner of champagne corks, putting the event in its proper perspective as an Historic Moment ahead of the outcome of an early regular season game. It was only fitting that it truly be a Big Goal.

The game was stopped right there on the knife edge, tied in the last minute of the third period. A red carpet unrolled at centre ice for an official ceremony which included Mister Hockey himself. Representing the Oilers was their captain, Mark Messier, a great player in his own right who would go on to win the Hart Trophy and the Stanley Cup that eventful season. But nobody in the building would have guessed that the centre ice ceremony involved what would become the top Three scorers in NHL history. The durable Messier ultimately eased past Howe in the final year of his own colossal 25-year career, and to this day is the only NHLer within 1000 points of Wayne Gretzky.

Remarkable to think that both scored their first NHL goal on consecutive nights in my first two live NHL games. That each was the biggest goal of the respective games was the cherry on top … those goals meant a lot at the time, and they still do today. The Impossible Dream was off to an amazing start.