CALGARY — It was a night that you had to be an Albertan to truly value. It took the appreciation of someone who has watched both hockey’s Battle of Alberta, and the political Battle for Alberta fall into irrelevancy and redundancy over the years.
And if you were that person Tuesday night at the Saddledome, as the Flames checked in and the Conservatives checked out, it’s an evening you will never, ever forget.
On Tuesday Alberta’s voters ousted the Progressive Conservatives after 44 years in power. As fans monitored their phones to see news outlets declaring the NDP as official winners, and the Wildrose Party as the opposition, down on the ice the Calgary Flames were continuing their crusade as well, with another stirring comeback that literally ran chills down your spine.
The next day Taylor Hall, he of the pitied Edmonton Oilers, set up the come-from-behind winner over in Prague as Canada beat Sweden at the World Championship. He and teammate Jordan Eberle have been two of Canada’s best players thus far in the tournament.
New Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli is musing over which experienced coach to choose, Connor McDavid is a few months away from taking residence in Edmonton, and all the while, these darned Flames just never, ever quit.
These are heady times in Alberta. There’s a new political climate, and perhaps even more crucially, the Battle of Alberta just might be back.
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“That sounds like a lot of fun,” smiled Flames winger Joe Colborne, who played his junior hockey just outside Edmonton for the Camrose Kodiaks. “As a Calgary kid, I love playing the Oilers every chance I get. It didn’t matter this year that they were near the bottom of the standings, and we were fighting for a playoff spot. We knew we were going to get their best game.
“A playoff series? That would be pretty epic.”
The Flames are undoubtedly on their way, with a young roster full of sub-23-year-olds such as Sean Monahan, Johnny Gaudreau, Sam Bennett, Michael Ferland and Joni Ortio. The Oilers have always had talent, but with the new GM and the arrival of McDavid, it appears the light at the end of the tunnel might finally be something other than a neon bar sign.
“It is scary for us,” said Flames assistant coach Martin Gelinas, a member of Edmonton’s last Stanley Cup winner in 1990. “The new GM I think will do a great job, he’s got a great track record. Those young kids, it looks like they’re going to have a new coach … and after that you have to make those players accountable. But, they do have the talent. You just have to make sure that talent is all working together.”
Games between Edmonton and Calgary have been largely irrelevant for 15 years or more, simply because neither team has been good enough. Suddenly the Flames rebuild has vaulted past Edmonton’s, but even people down here look northward at the change in management structure and begrudgingly say, “With that much talent, they have to be able to figure it out eventually, don’t they?”
“Those are the rivalries you want. We just saw Mayweather and Pacquiao. Look at the buzz you get around that,” said Mason Raymond, the Flames winger who grew up on a cattle farm near Cochrane, Alberta, yet cannot come up with one single vivid memory of a Flames-Oilers game from his youth. “Playoffs always generate great rivalries, because intensity ramps up. Would I like to be part of that? Of course.”
When the Battle burned hot, it would have been heresy to suggest that the day would come when an Oilers-Flames game on a Saturday night would not stop traffic in this province. But for years now the games have been played without malice or great import, with Calgary winning far more than their fair share of the meetings.
Gelinas joined the Oilers in 1989 — the year the Flames won their only Stanley Cup.
“It was not only the playoff games, but every game, people were talking about it. People were amped up,” he recalls. “Players were getting excited, ready for it. It was a game that everyone in Alberta was going to watch, because something was going to happen.
“I remember fights and brawls… You knew you had to be ready every game.”
Today, the Flames are concentrating their glare on the Anaheim Ducks, trailing this Western Conference semifinal 2-1. Come next fall, we will all look at Calgary with a new, respectful eye, after what they’ve accomplished this spring.
As for Edmonton, maybe — just maybe — they are ready to hold up their end of the Battle once again. Add McDavid to the mix, and a Saturday game could just be something worth building a night around once more, the way it used to be during that stretch of time when Edmonton or Calgary went to eight consecutive Stanley Cup finals.
“It’s neat to see the game’s changing for the good,” Raymond said, “especially in two cities that eat, love and breathe hockey.”
True that, my friend. True that.
