EDMONTON - The newest face of hope
for the Edmonton Oilers franchise arrived Tuesday in Todd McLellan, a
salt-and-pepper haired, bleary-eyed, gravelly-voiced marquee head coach with a
reputation for injecting skilled, swift young players with the grit required
for success in today’s NHL.
McLellan was hired by new general
manager Peter Chiarelli in the same speed-dating fashion that newly empowered
CEO Bob Nicholson had secured Chiarelli, just days after he had been fired by
the Boston Bruins last month.
In a little more than a month since
their ninth straight non-playoff season concluded, the Oilers have given
Nicholson complete command of the hockey club; installed the well-respected
Chiarelli, who won the 2011 Stanley Cup in Boston; and won the draft lottery,
enabling them to select junior superstar Connor McDavid next month.
Now, McLellan, 47, is in place
after seven strong years with the San Jose Sharks, just two days after leading
Team Canada to a dominant, undefeated record and a gold medal at the world
hockey championship in Prague, Czech Republic.
Understandably, the changes have
given the fan base a massive booster shot of optimism, perhaps best expressed
by Oilers fan Jeff Chapman on Twitter: “Feed a dog once every nine years, and
he’ll wag his tail.”
As the new leaders settle in,
bringing a fresh start and new ideas to the Oilers, where do they take it from
here and how quickly do they get there?
“It’s going to go up,” said
McLellan, who becomes the sixth Oilers head coach in the last six seasons.
“That’s what the plan is, it’s to take it up, it’s to take the organization and
begin to climb the mountain.
“We have to chart our path to begin
with. We have to determine what we want to be and how we want to look. We have
to find the players within the organization right now, not going outside, but
within the organization, and put them in the right spots.
“With all of that, there’s pain.
There’s nights where we’re not going to be pleased,” he continued. “But there
are four teams that are playing right now that experienced that throughout the
year, too. They have painful nights; they just have fewer of them. That’s what
we’re trying to do, is take those painful nights and diminish them throughout
the years to the point where we can be at the top of the mountain. To come in
and say, ‘Hey, we’re winning a Stanley Cup next year.’ ”
McLellan, who fashioned a
311-163-66 won-lost record in San Jose, was careful not to over-promise in his
introduction to the Edmonton media. Chiarelli, a thoughtful deliberate sort, as
many a Harvard graduate can be, made no bold pronouncements, either.
“There is a freshness about it that
kind of reinvigorates things, myself included,” Chiarelli said, noting that
neither he nor McLellan bring any preconceived notions to their mandate with
the Oilers.
“It’s not just, ‘This is the way
things are done.’ There are a lot of good foundation blocks here, which is one
of the reasons I chose to work here and one of the reasons Todd chose to work
here.”
The pain will come in getting more
from the young, skilled, but defensively challenged group on hand. Chiarelli
believes McLellan, with his grounding as an NHL coach coming during his years
with the fundamentally sound Detroit Red Wings organization, is an excellent
fit to instil the so-called 200-foot game in the minds of the young Oilers.
It will take time for Chiarelli to
fill the obvious holes on defence and in goal; time for McLellan and his staff
to help youngsters like McDavid, once he’s drafted, defence prospect Darnell
Nurse and centre Leon Draisaitl mature into impact players.
“That’s what I want to stress,”
Chiarelli said. “We can’t come in and just bang the ball out of the park right
away.
“It’s hard to find players without
sacrificing something. It does start with a real, solid coach who makes players
better. So you’re going to get a bump that way.”
The Oilers have room under the
salary cap to possibly add a free agent; they have draft picks and some other
assets to deal to address some of their needs.
“But we’re not going to blow our
brains out (to make a major deal) just to get a short-term fix,” Chiarelli
said.
Oilers fans have heard this
“process” talk many times, but Chiarelli and his head coach hit the right notes
Tuesday.
“We’re not going to talk about
playoffs here,” said McLellan. “We’re going to talk about foundation, we’re
going to talk about creating an identity and building toward it.
“The playoff part of it exists
after you accomplish those regular season things, and we’ve got work to do
there, first of all.”
Oh my gosh.
Can you believe it?
Edmonton has just hired Todd
McLellan, who led Team Canada to a Russian-thumping gold medal at the world
hockey championships, to coach the Oilers!
Forget Mike Babcock leaving Detroit
to coach the Toronto Maple Leafs. With McLellan behind the bench and Connor
McDavid, the hottest young talent since Sidney Crosby, poised to be Edmonton’s
No. 1 draft pick, a new era of Oilers glory is surely upon us.
Oh my gosh.
Can you believe it?
I just bluffed my way through
Edmonton 101!
Truth be told, I’d never heard of
Todd McLellan until I picked up my Edmonton Journal at breakfast Wednesday
morning. And I’d never heard of Connor McDavid until Edmonton won the draft
lottery last month.
I’ve been to exactly one Oilers game
in the last 20 years — and that was four or five years ago, when a former
editor gave me her tickets to thank me for bailing her out of a jam. I took my
teenager with me. She was reading Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
on her Kobo between periods. When a fight broke out on the ice, she watched the
crowds, fascinated.
“Now, I understand why Romans were
obsessed with gladiators,” she said.
Our trip to the blue-line was highly
educational. (She’s now a university student, majoring in Classics.) But it
didn’t exactly turn either of us into diehard hockey fans.
No matter. If you live in Edmonton,
basic hockey literacy is a requirement of citizenship.
Sorry. Let me correct that. It’s not
hockey literacy you need. It’s Oilers literacy.
Lots of Canadians love hockey. But
few cities are quite as obsessed by their team as Edmontonians are with their
Oilers. I’m old enough to understand the genesis of that passion. I remember
when Edmonton didn’t have a hockey team, when the eastern-based NHL didn’t
think we were a big enough market to rate a team. I remember when the WHA came
to Edmonton, and gave us our first pro hockey. I remember when Wayne Gretzky
arrived — and signed up for accounting classes at my high school.
I remember the Oilers’ golden days,
when Gretzky and Jari Kurri and Mark Messier were heroes who put this
economically battered city on the map, who gave the community hope and glory at
a time when oil prices had collapsed, interest rates were soaring, people were
losing their homes. And I remember, as a young reporter, covering Wayne and
Janet’s royal wedding, where thousands of people lined the streets to catch a
glimpse of the prince of our city with his golden-blond consort at his side.
And I remember the anguish of the trade to the Los Angeles Kings.
But that was 27 years ago, long
before many of the Oilers’ most ardent fans and most hotshot players, were even
born. And still, Edmonton is Oilers Nation. It’s a mystery to me. The team
loses year after year and still Edmontonians fill the stands, buy the
merchandise, tune in the games, and share their rabid opinions on blogs, via
tweets, and in the lineup at Costco. Even when they’re throwing their jerseys
to the ice in frustration, they never lose their passion. This city turned
backflips to ensure the construction of a new arena in the heart of downtown
for a tanking team. Edmonton is a city of skeptics, a city where we routinely
chop down tall poppies and mock those who blow their own horns. When it comes
to the sacred Oilers, though, it’s blasphemy to express doubt. The Stanley Cup,
like the Grail, will one day return. With McLellan and McDavid, Merlin and Sir
Galahad, a new Golden Age beckons.
Sometimes, it’s lonely to be a
non-fan. It’s like living where you don’t quite know the language or grasp the
local customs. It’s not that I hate hockey. I’ve watched my brother and nephew
play for years. I know the difference between a Zamboni and a spinarama. But to
me, icing is best on cakes. I’m not always eager to carry the can for athletic
supporters.
Yet somehow, despite playoff
disappointments, this spring, Oilers fever is almost infectious. The arena is
rising quickly, transforming the downtown. The team is under aggressive new
management. Edmonton pulses with optimism. And with the May trees in bloom and
the goslings hatching, it’s just, just possible to believe the stars could
align again for our once and future gladiators. Oilers fans live in hope. Win
or lose, they will always be cheering.
It's simple Paula. Being a fan, or a
supporter as the Brits would say, is a tribal experience. It is like membership
in a massive family, many of whom you don't know personally and will never
meet, and not all of whom you like when you do. But you share a common passion.
There is nothing like riding home on the LRT after a big win, with the whole
crowd bursting with joy and energy. Like slapping five with a total stranger
after a big goal. A former girlfriend said she loved going to the games because
it was the only place she knew of where it was socially acceptable to scream as
loud as you liked. Remember how the mood of the city swayed back and forth
during the Oilers improbable 2006 playoff run and fans streamed to Whyte Avenue
afterwards because they didn't want those potent tribal feelings to stop?
Obviously some tribalism ... See More
Tom, I feel like your last line is
the one that rings truest: "That will still leave plenty of time for real
life." Like Paula, I too do not get this sports craze. It is too far
removed from me to anything that matters. I can understand the thrill of racing
down the ice with people hacking at your shins, and I completely get the glory
of putting the puck past the goalie, but I just don't get why this should be
important to you, the guy in the seat, or by extension, to the thousands of
diehard fans. I also think my not getting this is not a problem, since we need
many interests to keep this old world going smoothly. I do realize that it
(hockey, and sports in general) is important to some people, maybe even many
people, and so I too was behind the downtown arena proposal. I supported it
even though according to my own worldview t... See More
Reply ·
Joseph Simons I support ALL of those
things Joseph and despite my waxing poetic about the fan experience I
appreciate where it rates in real life. I am just trying to add a little
subtext to the sports experience and perhaps a translation to the immune of how
it plays on our evolutionary wiring to be part of a massive group,
subconsciously for most I realize. And I am aware of how our potent tribal
instincts can be exploited by evil people like the Nazis or the anti-immigrant
creeps. Far better that people experience the harmless pleasure of being a hockey
fan instead. Don't be so quick to assume that those who like sports are not
devoted patrons of the arts and passionate advocates for the disadvantaged. Or
that we were totally happy with the arena deal.Read Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch
for a hilarious account of being a thinking person's sports nut.
I'm always amazed that it is the ONE
thing in this city that unites people across ethnicity, culture, religion,
income-levels...you name it. And by "unite," I mean that EVERYONE in
this city has bonded at some point with a stranger over the Oilers. We are so
lucky to have them...as well as the phenomenon :)
Great article from the perspective
of a non-fan. I'm the eternally optimistic fan always looking forward with hope
to the new season. I'm the same age bracket as Gretzky & co. and they were
a huge part of my life growing up. I wish the new group all the luck!
Rick Worsfold · Top Commenter
Well written for someone who just
completed "Edmonton 101" Paula! I hope you get to a few Oiler games
in the near future to watch Conner McDavid and the boys work their magic!
Shawn Ginn · Top Commenter
Moral of the story: Don't take
Classics in University.
