Just when you think things couldn’t get any more insulting to Oilers fans – it happens.

We were forcibly sat down late last night and made to listen to this Oilers appeal to the fans on Dan Tencer’s blog. If you haven’t gone and listened to it we can fill you in quite quickly. A bunch of Oilers who didn’t identify themselves – Horcoff was there (we would know his voice anywhere) and perhaps Gilbert,  Strudwick and even a Hemsky at the end? It’s neither here nor there – whoever they were they collectively made a flat and unemotional appeal to Oilers fans to be supportive of the team in the next 6 games in a clip with about as much production value as an OilersNation Podcast. They certainly didn’t sound like a bunch of players that were about to catch fire and start rag dolling teams in their final 6 games. They sounded more like tired and defeated hockey players who would rather have worn a beard of angry bees than face Tencer and his micromophone. This is at least an acknlowedgment of the gillions of Citizens of the OilersNation, albeit a strange way to go about engaging the good party people. But that too is neither here nor there.

After sitting down and giving it the benefit of the doubt we listened to the appeal three seperate times. Three seperate listens and we have one real take on the matter:

“We the Oilers need you the fans, to cheer” they said. Uh, we need the fans need you the Oilers you to win some games!! If there is one party in the fans-team relationship that is failing the other we hardly think its the billions of devoted citizens of the OilersNation.

There is a touching part of the audio clip where the player reminisces about the fans on the route to the Cup run. Unidentified Oiler #2 mentions vague sentiments about how awesome it was when the fans would sing the anthem before the game. MY GODS MAN!! You do realize that you are basically rubbing salt in our collective wounds right? You do realize that we want nothing more than to get behind this team and cheer you idiots to 10 Stanley Cups in a row right? Invoking these memories as if to somehow suggest it’s the fans fault that you and your coworkers are anything short of bad right now is an absolute slap in the face to the hundreds of millions of fans that live and die with your every word. Rather than getting on the radio-blog thing and calling for support maybe you could go out there and earn it the old fashioned way:

We would personally give our left testicle, 3 toes and half of our thumb if you idiots would win a Stanley Cup. So don’t you go on the air and somehow infer that we are letting you down in any way shape or form. It is you who is letting us down. Get that very, very clear in your collective minds.

Perhaps we too should go on the air and make attempted emotional pleas that come off insincere and self serving too.

Playing the heart strings of Oilers fans in the powder keg of emotion we have going right now may not be the brightest idea guy-signed-to-gigantic-contract-starting-next-year. But if that is the game you want to play Shawn Horcoff, we will play along.

We have reached out to our vast network of criminal associates and have arranged tickets to tonight’s game against the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. The fact we are going to drag ourselves to the game despite the performances we have witnessed at RX1 as recently as last game should say something about commitment. We will join the other 1.4 million committed fans who will be filing into RX1 or dejectedly plunking themselves down in front of a telematrix to witness the hockey match this evening. We are going with our boy MSG who is one of the most knowledgeable hockey fans and biggest Oilers fans around. The two of us sat side by side for the bulk of the games during the SCF run in 2006. We will do as you ask and will personally drink ourselves under the table (as usual) screaming and yelling all the while (as usual) while making off-handed quips much to the delight of our section mates wherever we are sitting. 100% positive and 100% believing as we have done since we were 4 years old and started watching your predecessors play. We will do as you ask Oilers, but know this:

If you show us the same effort you showed us when we attended the games against Minnesota, Buffalo and Chicago this year we don’t know what we can do next but it will be dramatic. Not that anyone really cares what we think, but WE care what we think and we won’t be able to look ourselves in the mirror at the bus depot in the offseason if we know we let you kick us again when we were down.

But OK Shawn Horcoff. You have earned the right to make an appeal to the fans. We will do as you ask and we put all the negativity on hold. We will try and encourage the other dejected Oilers fans we know to cheer as though it is a playoff game tonight. We have collectively gone to the trouble of buying tickets and everything so why not right?

You have now have our full and undivided attention Edmonton Oilers Hockey Club and we are going to come through in spades like Oilers fans do time and time again. But if you fail us, so help you Gods Edmonton Oilers.