Get Cozy

This is going to sound pathetic to most logical thinking adults in the room – but the level of anxiety I experience on the cusp of the NHL playoffs each year is palpable. Oh sure, I remind myself daily of the insignificance of sports, especially in the the wake of the current state of our planet. However, it doesn’t seem to work – logic doesn’t seem to prevail.

This is the quest for The Stanley Cup – the oldest and most revered trophy in North American professional sports. If your team has won it in your lifetime, you understand the obsession. If your team has never won it, you don’t know what you don’t know. Grown men cry when they win it, they cry when they lose it, and I suppose normal people with actual lives mock them for it. Ignorance is bliss.

“Oh, Pope Francis died… but Evander Kane is now NOT available for Game 1? WTF?”

Edmonton Oilers fans are the worst. Even after a miraculous run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2024, the fan base essentially forgot that exhilarating experience the moment the puck dropped on the 2024-25 season. We are blessed with watching two of the world’s greatest hockey players every game (Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl), yet when perfection is not achieved, we obsess over what we don’t have.

Why didn’t we re-sign “Player X”? Our goaltending sucks! Why is our GM not landing big free agents? Vegas, Colorado, Dallas, Los Angeles are all doing great things, why aren’t we? McDavid will move on if we don’t <fill in any of a dozen different possibilities>! What are we doing?

Unfortunately, the Oilers didn’t do much this year to assuage the fears of their rabid fan base. Even though they made the playoffs, they underachieved, with most experts predicting a division title, yet the team stumbling to a middling third place result. I don’t really know what is worse – being the odds on favorite to win it all, or being the underdog trying to overcome long odds, and injuries, to shock the world. No matter what, the fear of losing, and the onslaught of ridicule from friends and foes that accompanies it is omnipresent until our fate is realized.

Introspectively, I can admit there is no small amount of projection taking place here. The “not Donald Trump” candidate lost in 2024, and the global unrest thrust upon us since then has been hard to process at times. My home and native land of Canada is suddenly on my adopted home’s enemies list, which I never thought possible. Trade wars threaten supply chains and our retirement accounts are feeling the pressure. On a daily basis, it seems American society is sliding backwards into a dangerous cycle of scapegoating and persecution – it’s a lot to handle.

So, perhaps it is that I channel that anxiety into hockey, in the hopes my team accomplishes something worthy of celebration, while the world dithers away at trying to find what unites us. Maybe that’s it. Still, I would sacrifice a lot, perhaps even a body part, for another sip from Lord Stanley’s Cup.

Maybe it’s because I’m of that age that remembers the annual right of passage growing up in Edmonton, and celebrating Stanley Cup victories down Jasper Avenue almost every June from 1983-1990. I so desperately want that again, and to share it with two sons whom I have cruelly brainwashed into following my footsteps as the next generation of Oiler faithful. In time, I hope they find it in their hearts to forgive me.