With massive support from their exuberant fans, the Edmonton Oilers knocked off their playoff opponents in the first three rounds, and emerged victorious in the Western Conference. Edmonton will now play the eventual Eastern Conference winner for the Stanley Cup.

This team is not to be confused with the Cup winning Oiler teams featuring Gretzky, Messier, Coffey, Anderson, Kurri, and showcasing great goal scoring. The 2006 Oilers are noted for their defence, and their penalty killing; they win low-scoring games by one goal. Their leader is defenceman Chris Pronger, who has emerged from the conference playoffs as the dominant player in each series.

The old Oilers killed penalties by attacking the other net, and forced opposing teams, supposedly on the power play, to defend against the short-handed goal. The new Oilers force their opponents to the outside, and clog up the passing lanes. For offense they rely on shots from the point, tipped in by forwards battling in front of the net.

The old Oilers had great goaltending, and so do the new Oilers, with recent recruit Dwayne Roloson a big story in the playoffs. Despite never starting more than nine consecutive games throughout his NHL career, Roloson, at age 37, has become the playoff workhorse, and the hot goalie needed to win a Stanley Cup.

Most fans watch the games on television, and get to be part of a hockey crowd by going to a bar. Edmonton has always been a tough town, rowdy and boisterous on Saturday nights. Playoff success has sent fans out of the bars onto the street to celebrate and wreak some havoc. Businesses along Whyte Ave. have been damaged, and the police have been out to make arrests after playoff games.

Having a Canadian-based team making a playoff run saves CBC television from losing its audience, and the NHL gets money when its telecasts generate ad revenue. As spring turns to summer, and the country moves to outdoor activities, holding our interest in hockey requires participation by a team with a following in Canada. In the U.S., the lack of a major market contender such as New York or Los Angeles hurts NHL television revenue.

This is Oil Country reads the banner at one end of the Oilers’ home arena. And, yes, Edmonton is the centre of the oil services industry, and the jumping-off point for the mammoth tar sands developments of heavy oil production. But the reserves of conventional light crude have diminished and Alberta is known more as a gas producer these days.

As for the oil industry, Alberta needs to take a lesson from the Oilers, and learn to play defence. Defending the constitutional rights of the citizens of the province to benefit from the resource has not been the policy of the Ralph Klein government. Selling off Alberta’s heritage for next-to-nothing in public revenues has been the history of the last years. While Klein yells about how he will defend Alberta from Ottawa, the American corporations have been the ones making off with the resources, and the revenues.

Just as the NHL has chased the U.S. market without giving much thought to the roots of the game in Canada, so Alberta has fixated on exporting a non-renewable resource south of the border.The Alberta Oil Sands are now the big play in oil country. Great care and attention needs to be paid to slowing down the production game, and protecting the environment. Expect nothing from Federal Environment Minister Rona Ambrose and her Conservative colleagues on this score.

Alberta policy on oil and natural gas looks more like the whoop-up on Whyte Ave. after the game than it does like a sound, reasoned approach to preserving the heritage of Albertans.

Duncan Cameron

Duncan Cameron

Born in Victoria B.C. in 1944, Duncan now lives in Vancouver. Following graduation from the University of Alberta he joined the Department of Finance (Ottawa) in 1966 and was financial advisor to the...