Does the Oilers' title challenge really excite hockey fans in the country?

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FORT LAUDERDALE — The frequent and occasional visitor to the Stanley Cup has seen many Canadians and Canadians over the past three decades.

In fact, each summer Stanley tours the hometowns of Canadian kids who are so good that their names are inscribed in silver and nickel alloys. Managers, coaches, scouts and support staff alike enjoy the privilege of day-long visits, so Stanley shows up at hockey rinks and baseball fields, summer fairs and parades, and once famously appeared at a venue in St. Albert, Alberta, that hosted an exotic-dancing spectacular.

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Still, we're told that the Stanley Cup's return to Canada and its extended stay in Edmonton is significant — a cameo from a Canadian player on the Florida Panthers isn't just to get us through an offseason of licking our wounds — and that we've had enough of America's monopoly on Canadian soccer.

And while it certainly seems absurd statistically that the 1992-93 Montreal Canadiens were the last of the great white northern teams to hoist the Cup, is their absence a reason to rise to the top again, or is it simply an annoying anomaly?

“Honestly, I think some people south of the border are starting to think that they invented the game because someone outside of Canada is winning,” six-time Cup winner Kevin Lowe said. “This is a really minor social media issue, but with that being said, why hasn't a Canadian team won? I think it's kind of a law of averages, and the teams have been close.

“I don't think a lot of people in the hockey world are panicking, but I am certainly starting to get worried. In other words, I was rooting for the Leafs to beat the Bruins this year, but I've never rooted for the Leafs before. So, as someone involved in the sport, I was starting to get a little tired as well.”

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The Oilers can put that story on the back burner and get back on track with a four-game sweep against the Panthers on Monday night in Sunrise, Fla. Things were looking bleak for a team that loudly proclaimed its glorious intentions in the fall, looking more like failure than a Cup. But that was 18 goals and three wins ago, and now it's time for them to finish the job — for themselves, of course, but also, it seems, for all the Canadian teams that came before them and fell just short.

There's the 2004 Calgary Flames who lost to Tampa, the 2007 Ottawa Senators who lost to Todd Merchant's Anaheim Ducks, the 1994 Canucks who lost to Lowe's New York Rangers, the 2011 Vancouver Crew who lost to Boston, the 2021 Habs who got thrashed by the Lightning and, of course, the 2006 Edmonton Oilers whose dreams were shattered in Game 7 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Since the Hammers' win in 1993, 15 U.S.-based teams have won the championship. Seven of those teams (Pittsburgh, Colorado, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, New Jersey and Tampa Bay) have done so back-to-back times, while 29 winless seasons have tarnished the trophy cases of Toronto, Montreal and Edmonton, tainting the spots once reserved for Stanley and Co. In the 1940s and '60s, the Leafs and Canadiens combined to win the championship, and for seven years it was primarily the Oilers who claimed it, backed by the Flames and Hammers.

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Everyone knows the Cup winner gets a ring, and everyone talks about it because the ring is flashy and shiny and diamond-studded. But the Cup is what matters, and the winner gets a miniature replica. Merchant learned that decades after he first saw the Cup as a kid in a used sporting goods store in Fort Erie, Ontario. Merchant's family lived in Buffalo, and each year he would cross the border to sell his old hockey gear and buy new stuff at a store called Don Simmons. Simmons, a former goaltender, won the Cup three times with the Leafs in the early '60s.

“He had a little Stanley Cup on his shelf,” Merchant said, “and I'd go into the back room and it was always there. I remember thinking it was so cool that it was always there. Then I remember being at (Cup winner Kelly Buchberger's) house, and I think we were having burgers and beers before the playoffs like we always do, and I saw his cup and I thought, again, it was so cool.”

While there are plenty of mini Stanley Cups in homes across Canada, demand for a full-size version has been growing for 30 years, with noise levels reaching a fever pitch, especially in Edmonton.

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“This is a big thing for the city,” Rowe said. “It's bringing in a lot of new Canadians around the Ice District. It's a whole new generation of fans, people banding together for a common goal. It's good for the province and the city. It puts Edmonton, Alberta in the headlines, and then it spreads around the world. It's all good.”

A Stanley Cup Playoff berth would undoubtedly be a positive economic by-product for the team and its community. There's no doubt Edmonton is bubbling with playoff fever and Oilers pride, but would a Cup win on Monday bring the nation to its feet? Would a Stanley Cup win be a panacea for all the wounds (if there really is such a thing) inflicted on the psyche across Canada by the complete lack of control over the freeze? Would the millions of other-occupied people in Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes and British Columbia be overjoyed if the Oilers beat the Panthers? Those people are certainly watching the game. Game 6 drew 4.4 million viewers in Canada and 4.1 million in the United States.

That means interest on both sides of the border. And as a WestJet flight entered the U.S. on Saturday, flying from Toronto to Fort Lauderdale, there were three passengers wearing Oilers jerseys. Jerry Korchinski was one of them, wearing No. 72 in bright orange and blue with “WD Hunter” written across the back, a nod to the godfather of the late Wild Bill Hunter, the bombastic showman who launched the Oilers as a World Hockey Association franchise in 1972. As other passengers passed Korchinski and his wife, one or two offered good luck.

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There were a few boos as the Korchinskis entered the airport terminal in Fort Lauderdale. That was just part of the experience they shared, which was all in good fun. The Korchinskis were at Rogers Place for Game 6, but then headed straight to the airport as the strains of “La Bamba” filled the air again.

Fandom can be impulsive. It can also be thoughtful and deliberate, consistent and calming. Tens of thousands of people at the Moss Pit have been doing it for weeks now. Is it about creating memories that will enrich their lives forever? Or is it about sitting outside drinking beers and watching hockey with friends and strangers (who all seem to be named McDavid)?

“They've already made (those memories), but if the team wins on Monday night, it's a whole other level,” Lowe said. “Where are you on June 24th in 2024?”

Thousands will flock to Rogers Place, giving the watch party its own voice and vibe, and similar gatherings will be held across Edmonton, and probably other parts of the country, wherever it matters to someone that Canada's team wins again.

That's the power of hockey. It provides connection. It gives you somewhere to gather, to celebrate and commiserate, to drink and swear, to know that your life won't change if the Oilers win, and your city's love for its team won't fade if they lose. But if I had the choice, I'd definitely choose to let Stanley go home.

dbarnes@postmedia.com
×: @sportsdanbarnes

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