Back to the drawing board
When it comes to the Elite Ice Hockey League of the United Kingdom, I’ll be honest; I think I’m starting to know my stuff. I don’t profess to remember who scored the winning goal in the play-off final in 1992 or anything such as that but in terms of the here and now, I feel rather proficient.
However when it comes to the NHL, I’m still a rookie. But I’m doing my best to change that. In a foolish and idealistic moment in the early inception of my hockey love, I chose Calgary Flames as my NHL team. The reasons were many and various, and I stand by them to this day. It does seem however, looking back, as though I probably could have made a better choice. But I made my choice, and I’ll stick by it. I have fallen in love with them, not quite in the same way as I did with the Vipers, but they are mine, a jersey has been purchased, and a fondness developed for players and things coloured red, so that’s that.
The NHL is a wonderful thing. It has a rich history, one of the most passionately contested cups in sport, a collection of supremely talented athletes and 30 whole teams who play a staggering 82 games each per season. The schedule is mind-boggling in its complexity and with several games a day, keeping up with the action whilst trying to maintain a normal life is difficult at best, impossible at worst especially when considering the time difference and the fact I work a regular 9-5 job, but highlights on the website and the excellent NHL Gamecenter are a godsend. As are the twitter updates from the Flames which I follow as if they were live, cheering every goal and face-palming every time we concede, gobbling up an entire game’s worth of updates in the space of about a minute the morning following every game.
So isn’t it about time I branched out and tried reviewing some NHL action? It’s the big leagues for me, baby! Let’s go back to Sunday morning. There was a frisson of excitement in the air. It was a rare and golden opportunity for me: a Flames game had been played overnight and I had all Sunday free to watch it, as live, on my trusty laptop, without knowing the scores in advance. It wasn’t just any game either, it was the second instalment in the Battle of Alberta against local rivals the Edmonton Oilers. (Local for Canada that is. Which in British terms, would be like calling Chelsea and Leeds local rivals. But that’s Canada for you). The Flames had drawn first blood in this season’s match-ups between the sides, winning the first meeting at the Scotiabank Saddledome in mid-October, and they travelled to Edmonton having dropped their first point in four games, in overtime against the Bluejackets on Wednesday.
NOT finding out ice hockey scores is relatively easy in the UK. You would think, wouldn’t you. As I stretched into my repose on the sofa, the knowledge of my afternoon’s planned activity like a seed of loveliness sitting in my brain waiting to blossom into miraculous life, I casually turned on the TV. Sky Sports News. Just to catch up on the goings on in the world of football, as I often do. First thing on the page. Ice hockey scores. My eyes were quicker than my brain. The very first words on the page… Calgary 5-3 Edmonton. My brain scrambled desperately, trying to un-see the score. In slow motion the little me inside my head was clasping her face like Macauley Culkin in Home Alone and crying ‘noooooo!!!!’ This was a total disaster. Afternoon ruined. What had been seen could not be unseen, and the suspense was ruined forever. What were the chances? I tried to claw back some positives. Oh well, at least we won. I thought. If Edmonton were on form to deliver a performance like the one I saw last week against the Blackhawks, I didn’t want to see the red flaming carnage that would be left behind.
Thankfully the Oilers have not yet played with the consistency required to be a top side and despite the brilliance of their youthful stars, they lack the edge to really impose themselves on the Western Conference so far. You wouldn’t have known it however watching the first few minutes of the match. The Battle of Alberta exploded into life and Edmonton were two goals up inside the first three minutes. If I hadn’t known the score I wouldn’t have believed we were capable of coming back from such an opening onslaught as this, the Oilers out of the starting blocks like they had rockets up their perfect Canadian posteriors. Not messing about, Brent Sutter called a time-out and the Flames gathered their thoughts.
And what a gathering of thoughts it turned out to be. Bam. Right off the mark, less than a minute of time on the clock since the Oilers took their two-goal lead, and they picked up a penalty, of which Flames took full advantage, Olli Jokinen scoring on the powerplay to make it a one-goal game. The pace was frenetic. This FELT like a local rivalry. I was out of breath just watching, and I knew the score already! A few minutes later, the second went in, Rene Bourque turning the puck round Edmonton netminder Nikolai Khabibulin at full stretch to tie up the game.
It was high octane stuff and the teams traded shots before the Flames started to make mistakes. They picked up five penalties in the latter half of the first and early part of the second periods and Flames fans hearts must have been in mouths; Edmonton’s powerplay the most effective in the entire NHL on home ice and no less than 4th in the overall standings, the unit took to the ice with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins looking to better his already impressive rookie scoring stats. But from the depths of mediocrity, Flames pulled a penalty kill that could have thwarted any attack in the league. Quite what they put in their pre-game isotonic drinks that night I don’t know but boy did it do the trick. They closed down the Oilers attacking unit time after time, netminder Miikka Kiprusoff barely tested for the duration of the Edmonton powerplays, and the counter-attack threatening short-handed goals to boot.
We weren’t too shabby on our own powerplay either, netting on two of three possible occasions with the man advantage. We were defensively superior. We had more shots on goal. We won our face-offs, regularly (Which made a nice change). Khabibulin was the jewel in the Oilers’ crown, ensuring they did not get beaten by a greater margin, but the whole of the Flames team performed well, notably Captain Iginla, subject of some squeaky bum time moments for Flames fans midweek when rumours surfaced of him asking for a trade (thankfully he quashed them pretty rapidly). Also Jay Bouwmeester and Derek Smith performed admirably along with the remainder of our defencemen, and Borque and Jokinen both looked strong up front. Edmonton just weren’t at the races and presumably will learn from this defeat. They are in terms of standings, better than us. I’m pleased to say that on the night, that was not the case at all.
There were many highlights to take away from the performance, and by the end I didn’t even care that the outcome had been ruined for me by dastardly Sky Sports News. We went on to lose to the Canucks the following night, the Vancouver team with quite the hoodoo over their Calgarian counterparts, but thankfully we bounced back on Tuesday night with a thrilling 7-6 win over the Carolina Hurricanes. It seems too early in the season to say play-offs are an unlikely outcome, but if we can begin our winning streak a little earlier this season than we did last time around, we really should have a decent shot of scraping in.
How did I do? Do I sound like I know what I’m talking about? I must admit I have a lot to live up to, watching the live game and hearing the commentators I have to remark on their quite outstanding use of the English language. Are NHL commentators the most eloquent of all sporting speakers? I think quite possibly. Just in this one game I heard the words ‘stymied’, ‘roughshod’ and ‘egregious’. For me, with my love of beautiful words and my love of this beautiful game, it really doesn’t get much better than this. Bring on the next encounter, and GO FLAMES GO!!
