Go Oilers Go!

It's always nice to see your local NHL hockey team involved in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The vibrant buzz around the city is electric and it's a good feeling when the home team is winning. I get it, the average everyday Edmonton hockey fan is as passionate as they come, but I will never understand the urge for grown men to climb things in order to celebrate. Climbing up a lamp post just doesn't seem like a practical choice of action unless of course you're a bird and plan to nest there, otherwise it seems rather pointless. What's up there? A view? Of what? Heads? People? Explain it to me if I were a 5 year old...

I have been lucky enough in my lifetime to watch two separate individuals forge a path in life that few could ever follow in their footsteps. The first individual is Wayne Gretzky. I remember when he transitioned from the WHA to the NHL and became an Edmonton Oiler. The fans, the crowd, the overall amazement of this young hockey player, Gretzky could capture every aspect of excitement with his style and talented skill level of abilities on the ice. Wayne Gretzky became so marketable that the manufacturer of the chocolate bar Mr. Big would hold contests where inside each and every chocolate bar wrapper was a prediction of what Wayne Gretzky would end the season with in total points, and the winning number was granted a substantial prize. Or end up on the face of a Wheaties cereal box, or soda beverage commercial, or credit card company...the list of sponsors became truly phenomenal for any one individual. After a full career of playing hockey and retiring in 1999, Wayne's stature skyrocketed him into the ranks along with legendary names such as Arnold Palmer, Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth and Mohammed Ali.

The second individual I have had the privilege of watching grow and develop is Connor McDavid. There are not enough adjectives in the world to describe the talent level of this individual. When it comes to mastering the love of the game, Connor has taken it to the next level that stands far above all others, past or present. While I do agree that Wayne Gretzky holds many more records than Connor, there is no question that if anyone can make a run at Wayne's records then it would be Connor McDavid.

To witness two superstars perform their magic in the same city 35 years apart is somewhat special to experience in this city. These two individuals have a special gift that less than a handful of individuals could ever possess...a talent above the average professional hockey player, a talent that makes the other players on their line even better.

Every major metropolitan city has had their elite athletes on a local sports team that we love to cheer and support, where Edmonton is no exception. In fact, based on our history, we have had some of the world's most skilled athletes call Edmonton their home.

If Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers can win a Stanley Cup, I believe our city motto should re-establish itself as "The City of Champions" when the talent level of these two superstar athletes warrants the branding.

There is already a main roadway artery named Wayne Gretzky Drive in the city of Edmonton, I can only hope to foresee a Connor McDavid Boulevard some day in the future, because he truly deserves it.

But really, seriously, please refrain from climbing city street lamp posts during the Playoffs because it only displays your overall level of intelligence. Unless you work for National Geographic and need the best vantage point for a camera shot then by all means do what you need to do to earn a living, but for the poor souls that have the unusual intentions of "look at me" in their mind, they must realize that the higher they climb the street light the lower their IQ score.

It's one thing to take in the festivities of the moment and enjoy it to the max, but it's another to get completely ridiculous about it enough to end up in the Crowbar Hotel for the evening. Nobody needs free room and board that badly...it's just a hockey game folks. It's quite easy to enjoy it in a civilized manner. Try it, you just may like it!

For the rest of us hockey fans that spent our youth growing up playing and watching hockey, it is a rare treat to witness two superstars perform in my lifetime on the team I support, and I am grateful for the experience. To Wayne, I can only say thanks for the memories in the 80s, and to Connor -- well what can I say; you are currently the world's greatest hockey player to ever exist in the game, and after watching all the greats that ever played the game I can say that you stand above in the master class. I am also truly thankful that your parents were like my own, where they allowed me to blacken the walls from the rubber off of a hockey puck. As a teenager I used to fire hockey pucks into the clothes dryer in the laundry room until one day I hit the inside of the dryer door and smashed all the plastic lining. Oops...

Please don't ever tell my Mom or Dad, but there are a few hockey pucks inside of the walls of our old family residence. It would probably come to a surprise when the current homeowner decided to renovate the home and tear down the east drywall in the basement and discover the numerous hockey pucks. One of the hockey pucks was an official Edmonton Oilers game puck that was deflected into the crowd and I grabbed it out of the air. In hindsight I really should have enclosed that puck behind glass, but when you're young and thoughtless the idea of shooting a puck, any hockey puck, is more important than the object's potential value for which your focus is concentrated upon your development of shooting into a target.

It's almost as bad as taking my Wayne Gretzky O'Pee-Chee rookie year hockey cards and clipping them onto the back forks of my bicycle as a teenager in order to create the flapping sound and novelty form of entertainment. Last I heard, the Wayne Gretzky rookie card sold for $190,000USD and that was over ten years ago -- I can only imagine that I destroyed at least one half dozen Wayne Gretzky rookie cards without blinking an eye.

Thankfully millionaires are way overrated.

I'm more thankful that I have been, and now currently able to enjoy both the early days of my life watching one superstar, while I grow into a well established career and have the chance to witness yet another superstar that one day may even surpass the longest-running record holder on the planet in the game and sport of hockey.

Time will tell...tick tock, tick tock...

LET'S GO OILERS, LET'S GO!