History of an Oilers Fan – Part 4
In this edition of my “History of an Oilers Fan” summer series, I focus on the 2006 cup run, to the present. If you need to catch up, check out part 1, part 2, and part 3.
2006 was hands down, the most exciting playoff run of my life! I had a couple of buddies at work who were die hard Oilers fans like me, and we watched most of the games that spring together. It was amazing to have gone so long without any post season success and all of a sudden find your team in the finals for the first time in 16 years! Half my life had gone by since they knocked of the Bruins to win their 5th Stanley Cup. Man, did my wallet and my liver take a shit kicking during those playoff months! Knocking off Detroit in the first round was unreal, yet I don’t think anyone could have predicted how far we would go. Down 2 games to 0 vs San Jose in round 2? No problem. In fact we won the next 4 straight and then the first 3 games vs the Ducks in round 3! 7 straight Playoff wins, unbelievable. Game 1, Stanley Cup Finals. We take the lead, we have everything under control and then…. It all ends. Rollie goes down injured. Conklin comes in to replace him and lays an egg, our forwards loose their confidence. We end up dropping both games in Carolina before grabbing game 3 back in edmonton, only to loose game 4 and be faced with the near impossible task of coming from a 3 games to 1 series deficit. We all know what happened, we clawed and fought our way back to tie the series and force a game 7. My highlight of the entire 
playoff run? Game 5 vs Carolina, overtime, shorthanded: Pisani strips Sillman of the puck the offensive zone, and wires one top shelf past Cam Ward to win and keep the Oil alive! I jumped about 5 feet in the air, and my buddies claim to this day I left a dent in the floor of the sports bar we were at! I was so jacked up for game 7, I could picture team captain “Gator” Jason Smith hoisting Lord Stanley’s cup. I replayed the thought in my head all day at work. I couldn’t focus, it was like Christmas morning as a little kid, except better. Of course we would go on to loose a heart breaker that evening, perhaps a game that we were never even really in. And of course I along with all Oilers fans were crushed and disappointed. Adding insult to injury was Pronger asking to be traded following an incredible playoff drive that gave Oilers fans hope for the future. Pronger’s inevitable trade would set the team back at least a year or 2 and I don’t they have still fully recovered from that. Ryan Smyth, would be traded the following year at the deadline changing the face of the franchise yet again.
The next 3 seasons following ‘06 were filled with hope, disappointment, frustration, anger and disbelief at how close we came, and how far we had fallen in such a short time. It was like we had gone back to the pre-lockout struggles of not being able to compete with the elite teams but without the excuse of being a small market team. In the summer of 2008 Daryl Katz purchased the Oilers and attempted to make a huge splash by landing a big free agent. They led the Oilers faithful the believe that they were on the cusp of signing Marian Hossa to a huge contract. Of course the unwillingness of free agents to sign in Oil Country has been well documented and is perhaps more a subject for it’s own post here. The Oilers, under the ownership of Daryl Katz, will be more competitive from a dollars and cents standpoint. The EIG era had run it’s course in Edmonton and it was the right time for a change.
The 2008/2009 season was perhaps as frustrating as any I have endured as an Oilers fan. I was living in Mexico for the entire season. Televised games were readily available at many bars around the town I lived, so I had many opportunities to watch my Oilers. One bar owner, from Calgary, would always give me a hard time when I asked him to put on the Edmonton games. Normally I would listen to either the 630 ched radio broadcast or try to get a live video stream online. Regardless of how I did it, I rarely missed a game. When the Oilers fell apart in late March 2009, I didn’t know what to think. We had a playoff spot secured only a couple weeks before, and we let it slip away. It was obvious to me that this team was in disarray.
Following another non playoff season, the third in as many years, MacT took the first bullet. GM Steve Tambellini promised change, and his desire to get bigger and harder to play against. It doesn’t look as though he accomplished his goal this summer, but with Pat Quinn and Tom Renney coming in as Coach and Associate Coach there is room for some optimism. Is it enough to avoid a 4th straight season with no playoffs? I don’t think many Oilers fans would stand for that, mind you I probably said the exact same thing last summer about a 3rd straight season with no playoffs!