There were plenty of flashing red warning lights on the road to the current worst timeline imaginable, both figuratively and literally for Canadians who’ve had to watch hockey players light the lamp in godforsaken Florida for the past six years in the Stanley Cup Finals.
The Edmonton Oilers are once again the last Canadian team standing and in a rematch with the Florida Panthers, who narrowly avoided becoming only the second team in history to lose a Game 7 final last year after leading the series 3-0.
No domestic NHL team has brought Lord Stanley’s Mug home in 32 years, and it’s hard to understate what an open wound this is to national pride no matter how many world championships or Olympic gold medals we win. I don’t know if there’s a Yankee equivalent but imagine if the Toronto Blue Jays — the only non-US baseball team remaining in the big leagues after the Expos were kidnapped — were the only ones to win the World Series in a generation. Or if the Raptors somehow managed the same in the NBA even though basketball was actually invented by a Canadian.
The Montreal Canadiens were the last ones to hoist the trophy after knocking off the LA Kings led by a still-young Wayne Gretzky (more on him in a sec) in five games back in 1993. For context, FBI agents Mulder and Scully were just starting to look into weird shit in the Vancouver area, the Barenaked Ladies had yet to make a million dollars, the late Norm McDonald was still on SNL before making too many OJ Simpson jokes, and the country saw three different prime ministers in the span of a year.
Visiting the remote capital of Alberta isn’t exactly on most Canadians’ bucket lists despite being home to North America’s second-largest shopping mall, and it may seem absurd for the country to pretend the Oil are actually Team Canada despite having the same captain in Connor McDavid. But assurances from US ambassador Pete Hoekstra that talk about the country becoming the 51st state being “over” were quickly shown to be empty — as anyone who’s ever had an elderly loved one with dementia could’ve told him — and tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum have been jacked to 50 percent to send a firm NO TACO, NO TACO, YOU’RE THE TACO message to Wall Street.
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The Panthers’ owner is oligarch army veteran Vinnie Viola, who was briefly his old friend Trump’s unqualified nominee to be secretary of the army back in the first round before a sober SecDef intervened. He still has ties to his alma mater West Point though and enjoys parading players around for training camps and exhibition games, and Viola also pulled some strings for a recent visit to the White House, where you will not be surprised to learn the host made a fool of himself:
The Panthers, 2023 and 2024, season was one for the history of books… You secured the Atlantic Division title for the third time, and after coming up just short of the Stanley Cup the year prior, you gave the fans one of the most riveting comebacks in NHL history, in any sport history. I don’t know anything about a comeback, but they tell me it’s very nice.
“The history of books.” He was trying to be cute and make it about himself as usual, but they most definitely did NOT give fans one of the most riveting comebacks in sports history, they nearly blew a three-zip lead, a feat only one other team has managed before: the Detroit Red Wings in 1942, a time when the two countries were still in agreement the Nazis are bad.
There were actually only three American players on the roster last season, one of whom was MAGA goon Matthew Tkachuk, who you may recall as the instigator of three different fights in the first nine seconds in the emotional final of the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament in February, which was essentially just a meaningless NHL marketing stunt nonetheless watched by one in four Canadians.
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Another was rightwinger Kyle Okposo, who has since retired but joined his former teammates in DC for the big day, and there’s just something inherently wrong about a Black Panther visiting the Trump White House even if they aren’t a former member of the activist political party or the protector of Wakanda.
Look, I realize nobody subscribes to Wonkette for hockey content, but if y’all expect unassuming Canada to be the tip of the spear of global resistance to Chickenshitler due to our geographic proximity, we’re gonna need Stanley back home to fully, completely get our mojo back. Even if the word “puck” makes you think of Shakespeare’s mischievous fairy instead of a rubber disc or if you associate a glove save with OJ’s legal defense instead of a goalie flashing leather, here are a few perfectly good reasons to hop on the Oilers Nation bandwagon anyway:
The Panthers’ own coach didn’t want them to win this year: Paul Maurice gave a surprisingly honest answer in 2024 immediately after winning the championship when asked who he’d like to see win the next: the Winnipeg Jets. He even doubled down just the other day about his former team, telling Yahoo Sports: “Now, my cheering for the team hasn’t really done them much good, it seems. But they’re just the right story in Winnipeg for the National Hockey League and what’s right about the game.”
It’ll grate on the Great One: Know who apparently didn’t want Winterpeg to win their playoff series against the Dallas Stars? Wayne Gretzky, who stopped by the Stars’ dressing room to congratulate them after the Jets went down like they were playing out of the Devils’ rink in Newark. Obviously there were reporters there too, and Gretz wasn’t willing to say who he’d prefer to see win the next round when Dallas, a team he never played for, took on the Oilers, a team he won FOUR cups with and his brother Keith is the assistant general manager. “I’ll always be an Oiler at heart” would’ve sufficed. Dave Semenko and the sainted Walter Gretzky must be spinning in their graves. If there ends up being a victory parade in Edmonton this year, I half-expect Wayner’s statue outside Rogers Place to be torn down like a common Sir John A. Macdonald.
Florida doesn’t deserve to have nice things: Especially during Pride month.
Mark Carney needs this: Canada’s new prime minister, who played varsity hockey at both Harvard and Oxford, grew up in Edmonton during the team’s dynasty era and even donned McDavid’s jersey number 97 in an awkward campaign ad with Mike Myers. Even if it means treasonous Alberta preem Danielle Smith gets to milk the moment too.
McDavid is known up here as McJesus: And you just know how much that’ll piss off Fox News viewers even though he walks on (frozen) water.
The Panthers are named after an endangered species whose habitat their arena is built on: Who the hell does this? Certainly not the Ottawa Senators.
The house deejay enjoys blasting Superintendant Chalmers’ catchphrase “SKIINNNERRRR!” after goaltender Stuart Skinner makes a particularly spectacular save: I mean c’mon.
Everybody hates Brad: Panthers fans have a weird tradition of throwing toy rats on the ice because a player killed one with his stick back in the team’s early days, and they now have a rat of their very own in former Boston Bruin Brad Marchand, who was traded to the team in March. While Canadians are willing to hold their noses and cheer for the skilled bastard when he’s playing on international ice, the Nova Scotian’s reputation as the dirtiest player in the league even reached the ears of Barack Obama, who used his nickname the “Little Ball of Hate” to his very punchable face when the Bruins visited the White House after defeating my cherished Vancouver Canucks. “What’s up with that, man?” POTUS asked rhetorically of the the guy who dickishly scored the game-winning goal in double overtime last Friday.
It may be the Year of the Rat on the Chinese lunar calendar but the series is still tied 1-1 with Game 3 tomorrow at 5pm EST. Let’s go Oilers, eh!
[Heritage Minutes / CBS / Yahoo Sports / Blue Sky]
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