let's go, oilers

I love the CBC so much.

Right now I'm watching Game 7 of the 1987 Stanley Cup playoffs, Edmonton vs. Philadelphia. I don't even care that it's on so late at night; I'm just excited to see it on the regular CBC. This was the height of my obsession with the Oilers, them being my favourite team since I was around 4 or 5. Every Saturday night we'd scarf down dinner and then watch the game. When the Oliers played, Mom would let us have a TV dinner, pulling out the flowered TV trays and sitting in a row along the couch.

Some of my earliest memories are of sitting in the crook in front of Dad while he sat on the floor in front of the coffee table, playing Solitaire with a rye and water set to the left side, watching the game. The rhythmic movement of when he slapped down the cards mixed with the sound of Hockey Night in Canada. Even still when I watch HNiC I think of my dad.

The 1987 series was fantastic. It was the glory years of the Oilers with all the big names: Gretzky, Anderson, McSorley, MacTavish, Messier, Huddy, Coffey, Kurri, Tikkanen, Fuhr. Game 7 was in Edmonton and was action-packed. The ice was cleaner (read: no advertising), the players faster, the goalies more like regular players with just a bit more padding. The reason I think this series was so fantastic, aside from the Oilers totally winning it at home in Game 7, was that Ron Hextall, the goalie for the Flyers, was totally starting to lose it. He'd always been a bit of a lose cannon, being one of the few goalies to get into fist fights (yes, plural) on the ice, but the Oilers started running him when he went for his little skates to the corners to handle the puck. He just started hitting people with his stick and punching guys from behind if they were in his way. It's sort of hilarious to see a goalie get that nutty. And he was huge; like, 6'3".

I'm hoping this will be good luck for the Oilers later today. There are some similarities between the 1987 team and the current lineup (the speed and passing, mainly), but the one problem is that Fuhr was looking pretty good in net and the Oilers now... not really anyone they can count on since Rollie got knocked out. But I'm still hopeful.

Holy cow, the announcer just talked about the Celtics/Pistons series from 1987. The Celtics beat the Pistons to go to the finals. This was my other obsession during the same time, the Boston Celtics. My sister and I were Celtics fans for years (especially the Larry Bird years, the whitest basketball player in history) and they always wound up in the playoffs against the Detroit Pistons, the most loathed team in the Eastern Conference. Dennis Rodman was the sixth man and wore shorty shorts and white socks pulled up to his knees. What happened to you, Dennis?

The planets are aligning. It's all coming together.