An Open Letter to Calgary

 

Dear Calgary,

We’ve never gotten along, you and I. I’m a born-and-raised Edmontonian, and the simple blue-collar life here in Central Alberta doesn’t really jive with the metropolitan, white-collar lifestyle of the City by the Mountains. You like your freeways, we like our stabbings… Our two cities are like night and day in a lot of ways. What little we do share in common is hardly enough to make us drinking buddies. So we’ve settled on rivalry.

But certain cruel twists of fate sometimes mean we’re rooting for you. Like last night. We wanted you guys to win. Really, we did. And our motivations may have been selfish, but I think we can both agree that we’re living in unusual times. Times that mean the Oil have two games left before the end of the regular season. Times that mean we’re trying to sneak into the top eight teams in the west. Times that mean even though it’s “spring” it’s still really frickin’ cold outside—cold enough to refrigerate our beer the natural way while we watch teams we wouldn’t normally watch duke it out.

You guys took on VanCity yesterday. We eked out a win against you guys the night before and that was pretty devastating I know. We did it in your building. We did it in spite of the mouth-breathing “C” of Red booing every time a Calgary player fell or took a dive because you thought a penalty should have been called against the Oil. But come on, you guys. You’re pros. You’re pros and you gave up six goals to Van. And we’d probably be pretty ambivalent in any other situation. But you’re really messing with our playoff drive.

We don’t have much choice now but to hope you keep losing. There are a few scenarios we’ve worked out but this one is our favourite:

Edmonton wins its next two games for four points. Nashville only gets three points in its remaining three tilts. But here’s the kicker, Calgary. And you’re going to take this personally. Because it’s personal.

Since you’ve gone 4-6-0 in your last ten, we need you to lose to the Canucks again. And, in a perfect world, we’d like to see you end the season without winning a game from here till the end, but we don’t want to be petty. And then we need the Canucks to choke against the Avs, but you can let us worry about that.

When that happens, Edmontonians will build a human pyramid on Churchill Square as a demonstration of our pride. No need for any collapsible laser-domes. A new arena will appear floating above the downtown core on a cloud, with ample parking and bus access for all citizens. Ticket prices will drop, so that even the homeless can go to games. The Utopia we’re trying to build up here in Central Alberta will be complete.

You haven’t completely cooperated with us, Calgary. But we know you’ll come through. You’re as curious as we are to see how the Oilers would do in the first playoff round. So thanks in advance. We appreciate your utter lack of effort.

Sincerely,

DJ Spin Cycle
OilersNation