Odd thing about the Stanley Cup playoffs running soooo loooong this past season: when the dream finally came crashing to an end there was scarcely any time to mourn or even to parse the results. Instead, after a seven-game final series that took a marathon 17 days to complete, it was instantly the off-season, and the Edmonton Oilers were late to the process. Cup awarded on Monday, NHL Draft on Friday and barely a moment to catch a breath in between.
Or so it landed on your intrepid reporter, assigned to cover both events for the Cult of Hockey along with other happenings in between. Didn’t seem like we had a whole lot of time to reflect on what had happened on the ice; how the hockey club kept raising the bar and our collective hopes but ultimately, not the Cup itself.
Suddenly it was just… over.
One goal shy, but that lone goal meant everything. Out came some old clichés: so near but so far, a valiant attempt, proud of the boys, get ’em next year, yada yada yada.
Yet we all know “next year” might be in ten years time, or twenty, or thirty-four and counting in the case of the Oilers. I feel fortunate to be among that older group of fans who were around when the Oilers were in the ascendant, winning the grail one, two, three, four, five times in just a seven-year span. I was 34 when they won the last one in 1990, half my current age. Since then, no joy.
My connection with the Cup stretches back much further. In fact, Stanley was the first sports celebrity I ever met in real life. The occasion was my family’s cross-continental move from St. John’s, NL to Edmonton in the summer of 1962. I was all of 6 years old at the time and had not so much as watched a single game of hockey. The game wasn’t too accessible to a youngster on the Rock, where TV broadcasts didn’t even start until 10pm NT, well after my bedtime. But I knew my dad and older brothers were Maple Leafs fans.
Wouldn’t you know that when we passed through Toronto on that epic journey, our 1959 Vauxhall Victor somehow found itself on Carlton Street. We soon pulled in to a parking spot right in front of Maple Leaf Gardens.
Did I mention this was August? No hockey was happening, we just wanted to visit the famous old hockey barn and have a look around. To our collective disappointment, there was no access to the arena proper, but never mind that because of what was proudly on display right in the lobby: the most beautiful trophy in sports.
It wasn’t quite like this, which is a current photo taken in an outdoor setting, but the look of the trophy was virtually identical other than it was behind glass in a trophy case. A lone security guard kept a watchful eye on drop-in visitors like the six McCurdys that summer day. All we could do, and did do, was gape at it.
The Maple Leafs had won it that spring — on April 22 no less, a far cry from this year’s June 24. It was Toronto’s first title since 1951, which had been won on a famous overtime goal by Bill Barilko, later memorialized in song (“Fifty Mission Cap”) by the Tragically Hip. As the lyrics go:
- Bill Barilko disappeared that summerHe was on a fishing tripThe last goal he ever scoredWon the Leafs the CupThey didn’t win another till nineteen sixty twoThe year he was discovered
And indeed, Barilko’s remains had finally been recovered that same year that his old team finally regained the grail, after an eleven year search. Dad, who had seen Barilko play, regaled us with the story of that coincidence, at the time the latest legend of the mystical Cup and to this day one of its more famous ones.
Thus began my personal relationship with the game’s most famous icon. I was a tenth my current age, the Cup something over half of its.
I became an avid hockey watcher the following season, helped immensely by game broadcasts that in my new home of Edmonton began at 6:30pm local time. As per family tradition, the Maple Leafs became my own (childhood) team, and they would go on to win three more titles in my first half decade as a full time fan.
But that was just the start of a lifelong love affair with the game. I’ve seen every Stanley Cup presentation from then to now, some 61 of them in all between 1963-2024 (2005 excepted). Best by far were the four times I was in the building as the gleaming trophy was presented to my adult-life team, the Edmonton Oilers.
The first one in 1984 was extra special. I had no fewer than five in-person exposures to the trophy in barely a week. And what a week it was! The league set up a display in the lobby of the Westin Hotel with the Cup prominently featured. Fans lined up to see it, to photograph it, to hold it if they cared to. I happened to work in the heart of downtown just a block from the Westin so I dropped in during my lunch hour several times, and observed the evolution of a fan base in real time.
- On Tuesday, the day of Game Three with the New York Islanders, fans weren’t shy to lay hands on it, though mostly in a respectful manner. I was a look-don’t-touch type, though I sure did remember that day 22 years earlier I’d met Stanley in a different lobby.
- On Wednesday, after the Oilers beat down the Isles 7-2, the mood was exuberant. A number of fans raised the Cup over their heads in the classic victory poise. Confidence abounded.
- Then on Friday, after the Oilers had won Game Four by a similar count to pull within a game of their ultimate goal, things were different again. Fans formed a ring around the Cup, nobody close enough to touch it, just to stare longingly at it. Few words were spoken aloud, though I have an idea many silent prayers may have been offered. It was so close, nobody wanted to break the spell.
Then came the game on Saturday night, an unforgettable occasion for all in attendance and many thousands more who wished they were. Kick-started by Wayne Gretzky’s 99th and 100th goals of the season, the Oilers jumped to a 4-0 lead. They saw the Islanders cut it in half in the third period’s first minute, but hung on tenaciously through a bitterly-fought final period before Dave Lumley’s legendary empty netter sealed the deal. As players hugged it out on the ice, we fans did the same up in the stands. The atmosphere was jubilant.
It took a few minutes for the initial celebration to run its course, for the two teams to carry out the traditional handshake line, before a presentation table magically appeared on the ice and the Stanley Cup itself entered the scene. Commissioner John Ziegler presented it to captain Gretzky, and pandemonium ensued yet again. The crowd roared and roared and roared again each time a different hero took his turn with it.
The fifth time in that glorious week was at the Stanley Cup parade days later. I was working so miseed the speeches at Churchill Square, but did slip out to Jasper Avenue as the motorcade made its way by. The focal point was of course that beautiful silver trophy in the personal custody of none other than the Great Gretzky, memorably wearing a white suit for the occasion.
More live sightings came in the years that followed, notably after three more clinching games at home in 1985, ’87 and ’88. After that, such opportunities became sporadic, though the Cup did put in another appearance at the Westin Hotel for the Heritage Classic in 2003, and magically showed up in Rogers Place in 2018 at the celebration of the 1985 Oilers as the Team of the Century.
Alas, no more Stanley Cup wins in all that time, with those two close-but-no-cigar endings in 2006 and 2024. But the opportunity arose just this past week to have another brief visit with the chalice when it was brought to my present home town of St. Albert by local product Jush Mahura, who won it with Florida Panthers last month.
Mahura is not the first St. Albertan to win it; that was the great Joe Benoit with Montreal Canadiens in 1946, thought to be the first Métis in league history. Nor is he the most famous; that can only be Mark Messier, who won the Cup six different times. In the process he became the only player to receive it as captain for two different franchises, our own Oilers in 1990 and later the New York Rangers.
But win it Josh Mahura did, and as per modern tradition, he got his day with it. As many players do, he returned to his rootswhich are right here in St. Albert, where he came up through the Sabres and Flyers programs. And he brought it to the facility he played many of those games, now known as Jarome Iginla Arena in honour of another famous St. Albert hockeyist. Alas, Iginla never did win that Cup.
It was a hot and smoky day, but that didn’t dissuade a large number of St. Albert residents from coming out. By the time I made it there, halfway through what was scheduled as a two-hour event, a lengthy line-up snaked back and forth across the large parking lot.
Had to be the better part of a thousand people there including a large number of kids, baking under the hot July sun. Friendly volunteers handed out free water, free coffee, even free ice cream. Folks chatted amiably as they patiently waited their turn.
At the front of the line, the affable Mahura shook hands with each guest, posed for the inevitable picture, and just kept on smiling right through the whole thing. There was still a lengthy line at the scheduled end time but no worries about that, the event would go on until everyone had their turn. Which for me came after the better part of a two-hour wait.
I wish it was under different circumstances, obviously, but nice to renew acquaintances once again. 62 years have passed since I first laid eyes on it, and the Cup has been updated several times. Indeed, the 1962 Maple Leafs are nowhere to be found; the bottom half of the Cup has five big bands with room for 13 champions on each, with the oldest team on that part of the trophy being the 1965-66 Canadiens. Meanwhile, the names of early champs (predating 1927) are engraved on the smaller bands in the upper segments of the Cup, while the players of the 1907 Montreal Wanderers are engraved within the bowl itself! Those teams between 1927 and 1965 are on bands which have been removed and placed in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
All five Oilers Cup teams are engraved on what is now the second band from the top, which is slated to be removed in 2043. Suggesting it’s time to get serious about adding the next generation of Edmonton Stanley Cup champs. It would be so great for the several generations of Oil fans who weren’t around in 1990, while those of us who were aren’t getting any younger!
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