These are a few of my favourite things

“The Oil could potentially win tonight but even that won’t give us enough confidence to scream fearless playoff predictions at the bar later” – Commander W Gretz IV, Jan 3, 2008 6:12 PM MST

This is where our head was going into the game against the Stars on Saturday night. It kind of felt like sitting down to watch an episode of Season One of Star Trek: The Next Generation. You know it’s a good show overall — but all the episodes from that era are all all crappy. Worf looks all weird, Riker has no beard and Dr. Crusher doesn’t get hot till Season Three.

Same with this 2008-2009 Oiler squad. The elements are there but they are all crappy and weaker versions of the team they will hopefully become in a few seasons.

Saturday night felt exactly like that. It started with our posse trying to be responsible and take the LRT to the game. THAT was short lived as the LRT had conveniently frozen solid. We didn’t even know that was possible but the night didn’t start strong.

Once we were finally able to drag our frozen carcass to the game we sat down expecting to warm ourselves off the self righteous glow of Canadians who had just witnessed a World Junior win. As the game began we realized that it wasn’t much warmer in RX1 than it was outside. And remember subway cars were freezing outside. What is the story with this? We had to know so we went to the one person who will know guaranteed.

“Why is it so cold in here?” we asked through chattering teeth.

“Funny you should ask Wanye,” the usher replied nodding knowingly. “We heard a pipe broke in Rexall and they don’t want to fix it cause they know the days of this arena are numbered.”

Now it’s hard to say if this is true but damn Northlands. You can’t just bang together a new arena in an afternoon. It takes time! In the meantime, it’s colder than the Heritage Classic up in there. Fix that Heatdistribumatrix or whatever it takes.

Here are some other things we liked on a hockey-beer-fueled night:

Will any of this carry forward into tonight’s game against ye olde Islanders? It’s tough to tell these days which cast members will perform on a given night. The only people watching this season of the Oilers show right now are die hard fans and they will watch anything.

Even Riker without a beard.