Hockey Teams and Ice Cream

Whenever he gets a chance, my cousin Paul likes to give me a hard time on my choice of hockey team. Usually at family functions — after everyone has eaten and had a few drinks — he picks someone, usually my uncle or my dad, and says:

“Let me get your opinion on something. Imagine a person who has lived in British Columbia his whole life, born and raised in Prince George. He is a hockey fan like no other, passionate about his team. But his team is not the Vancouver Canucks, the team which represents the city he lives and works in. Oh no, despite living in this city for more than ten years, he continues to cheer for the Edmonton Oilers!”

At this point in the story, everyone in the room stares at me and begins to chuckle. Paul then turns towards me and says, “Jeff, you really need to let the glory years go. The Oilers haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1990…..when you were 13!”

After everyone has finished laughing, I dryly remind him that at least I have seen, with my own eyes, my team raise the Stanley Cup — five times actually. To add insult to injury, I sympathize with my cousin’s situation of supporting a team that has been celebrating second-round losses for 40 years. And with that, we become teenagers again, with Paul chasing me around the room, eventually catching me and holding me in a headlock for a few minutes until I beg for mercy. It makes great after-dinner entertainment for those who are watching.

Why do I cheer for the Oilers even though I have never lived in Edmonton? This is the reason I give people — growing up in Prince George in the mid-80s, we had an Edmonton TV channel, ITV (now known as Global Edmonton), which played 40 to 50 Oiler games a year. These were the years when Gretzky was in his prime and the Oilers had a cast of future Hall of Fame players such as Mark Messier, Grant Fuhr, Paul Coffey and Jari Kurri.

Now, the Canucks on the other hand wore yellow jerseys at home, had traded future all-star Cam Neely to the Boston Bruins for a bag of pucks (in this bag a player named Barry Pedersen was hiding) and routinely lost games to the Oilers with scores of 13-3 or 9-2. Sure they had heart and soul players like Captain Stan Smyl and goaltender Richard Brodeur, but they were painful to watch. Being a kid, which team would you have cheered for?

But here is the kicker: I wasn’t much of a hockey fan until about 1984, in the month of May to be exact. That was when my older sister Jas came home from school one day and told us that her teacher (who was originally from Edmonton) had told the class that if the Oilers beat the New York Islanders in the Stanley Cup Finals that year, she would buy each student an ice cream bar.

Knowing Jas didn’t care much for ice cream bars, I asked if I could have hers instead and she said I could. So I started watching the Stanley Cup Finals, hoping the Oilers would win so I could get the ice cream bar. Sure enough, they won in five games and their dynasty, and my devotion to the team, had begun.

So whenever people ask me about why the Oilers are my favourite team, I usually give them a reason about how I cheered for them because of the exposure on television when I was growing up. In addition, it was much easier to cheer for Gretzky and Co. when they were winning Stanley Cups whereas the Canucks were having trouble finding their way onto the ice from their dressing room.

All the while I smile, thinking about of how terrible that ice cream bar was!

Photo Credit

“I love Klondike Bars” Ellie @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

Recent Jeff Randhawa Articles:

• Thoughts From the Waiting Room
• Being Socially Awkward in the New Brave World
• The Lay Off
• The Sick Day
• Tera Mera Ki Rishta (What is Our Relationship?)