No one ever asks whether Charlie Brown will kick the football, other than Charlie Brown. Everyone but him assumes Lucy will lift the football and Charlie Brown will fall flat on his face. We are supposed to be encouraged by Charlie Brown's resilience.
Such are the fanbases of Canadian teams that have come close to winning the Stanley Cup. Calgary with the stolen goal. Edmonton with the injured goalie. Ottawa with questionable officiating. Vancouver with borderline criminally bad officiating. Montréal with not enough gas left in the tank. Edmonton had the valiant comeback but Gary Bettman's will is stronger than even the Edmonton Oilers.
Connor McDavid had 34 assists, the most assists of any postseason in NHL history. 8 goals with that for 42 points in the playoffs, the 4th most in any postseason in the league. McDavid had 8 points over 2 straight Stanley Cup final games. He also won the playoff MVP.
Wayne Gretzky had the precious record for assists in 1988.
Leon Draisaitl. Zach Hyman. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Stuart Skinner in goal. Trade deadline acquisition Adam Henrique. Evander Kane.
Warren Foegele. Ryan McLeod. Mattias Janmark. Connor Brown. Dylan Holloway.
Darnell Nurse. Vincent Desharnais. Cody Ceci. Philip Broberg. Mattias Ekholm.
Edmonton Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch, who came in to rescue the team after Jay Woodcroft got fired early in the season.
These are most of the names (sorry for not mentioned everyone) whose names should be on the Stanley Cup.
Thanks for all the mentions of the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs in the last 2 weeks.
The Edmonton Oilers had concerts before the home games outside Rogers Place in the Stanley Cup final. Our Lady of Peace, who played for the Montréal Alouettes 2023 home opener in, had a pregame concert before Game 3 in Edmonton. Shania Twain had a concert before Game 4 on Saturday.
Canadian music and sports and even American acts with Canadian sports prove quite popular. Just ask the BC Lions of the CFL. As "liberal" as Edmonton is compared to the rest of Alberta, Edmonton loves its country music.
Snoop Dogg filled that role before Game 6.
Canadian singing icon Alanis Morissette sang both anthems before Game 7 last night.
A special thank you to Kate. She is an Oilers fan who got drunk (her words) and showed her bosom at an Edmonton Oilers game. The video is out there. Kate posted a follow up video responding to those critical of what she did. Life is too short to give much to small-minded critics. Kate harmed no one and brought a lot of joy.
Her brother took a lot of grief in this playoff run. Glad to see family love and support.
Canadian rap star Drake placed a $500,000 bet on the Edmonton Oilers to win the Stanley Cup. Drake posted a screenshot of the bet on Instagram: "Oilers are self-explanatory."
In a league that allows active players to do ads for gambling, even if Drake won his gigantic bet, the U.S. audience hasn't been as inundated with gambling ads as much as the Canadian audience. Thanks, Sportsnet.
Awful Announcing has a nice analysis on the uproar over the CBC not carrying Games 5 and 6 of the Edmonton-Dallas series (feels so long ago). The Sundays weren't too much of an issue until Game 6 of the Oilers conference final.
The timing was also bad because of the Rogers Sportsnet decision to not allow CBC Gem to stream the NHL playoffs.
Your humble narrator envisions chaos when Canadians try to figure out where Monday Night Hockey (Amazon Prime Video) is in Canada.
Citytv simulcasted the ABC feed during the Stanley Cup finals. Rogers covers the bases for the Canadians who somehow prefer the ABC feed (and Ray Ferraro) over the Sportsnet feed. For those who aren't familiar with simsubbing: the Citytv feed with Canadian commercials overrides the ABC feed on cable and satellite.
Every time people think that the NHL is finally making a foothold in the U.S. market, we get this. Canadian TV doesn't make mistakes such as this one. At least they didn't put in the Houston Oilers instead of the team from Edmonton. The NFL Network had way worse mistakes in the time where the channel carried the CFL in the United States.
We didn't report too much on government officials betting on the Stanley Cup playoffs. We did see British Columbia Premier David Eby wearing an Edmonton Oilers sweater after the Oilers defeated the Vancouver Canucks in the division final series.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis probably have a lot in common. Whatever I might think o Smith politically, she is way smarter than DeSantis (low bar). Their Stanley Cup final wager was Alberta-made whisky versus Florida rum. DeSantis also threw in key lime pie, the official state pie.
Can't go wrong wagering with alcohol, though elk (Alberta) vs. alligator (Florida) would have been a more interesting wager.
The Calgary Flames will have a new TV play-by-play person this fall. Rick Ball will call NHL games for the Chicago team with Darren Pang, Ball replaces Chris Vosters. who was the replacement for Pat Foley.
Shades of Dave Randorf, who left Canada to call games for the Tampa Bay team, though Rogers laid off Randorf before he took the job.
Rick Ball worked Vancouver Canucks games on radio and BC Lions as well before coming to Calgary at the start of the Rogers national contract in 2014. Ball was a gigantic step up from Rob Kerr on Flames TV games.
Ball started on Hockey Night in Canada in the CBC days in 2011 and became the lead Western play-by-play announcer in 2013.
Ball gives up national games in Canada for Rogers Sportsnet, though IMHO Sportsnet didn't use him too often on national games.
Ball had a single TBS appearance during the 2023 NHL Stanley Cup playoffs. On Saturday, April 22, Ball, Jennifer Botterill, and Aly Lozoff called Game 3 of the opening round series in Winnipeg. Turner could use Ball in the regular season and playoffs, maybe even sending him back to Canada.
Ball and Darren Pang (most games) will call the Chicago team on the new Chicago Sports Network, replacing NBC Sports Chicago for the White Sox, Bulls, and NHL team. [Our editorial policy prohibits us from mentioning sports team nicknames that are offensive to the Indigenous community. The Ryan Leslie tweet has been altered to meet our editorial policy.]
Harnarayan Singh could be a solid replacement for Ball in Calgary, maybe with a local backup during national telecasts. Derek Wills, the long-time Flames radio voice, could get the job or be that backup. Winnipeg made a bold move with Dan Robertson taking over for Dennis Beyak. Ball was somewhat known when Calgary got him to call the Flames games.
Calgary's loss is Chicago's gain. Some Chicago sports fans like a "homer" guy on the call. Ball is enthusiastic but definitely not a "homer."
Ball may have picked good timing to leave calling the Flames games given the state of the franchise.
Speaking of the Flames, the team traded goalie Jacob Markstrom to New Jersey for defenseman Kevin Bahl and a (top 10 protected) 1st-round pick in 2025. Calgary is retaining 30% of Markstrom's salary through 2025-2026 and avoided a signing bonus.
The Flames had talked with Toronto and Ottawa. The Maple Leafs would have made sense with Brad Treliving as GM. This is sad if, as the Flames claim, this was the best deal. Ouch.
New Jersey gets Markstrom for 2 seasons (at least). Ottawa traded a lot more to get goaltender Linus Ullmark from Boston for what will likely be 1 year. The Senators got a good goaltender for forward Mark Kastelic, goaltender Joonas Korpisalo, and a 2024 first-round draft pick. The Sens also retain 25% of Korpisalo's salary in the deal.
Rogers Sportsnet added a long-term deal to keep the Edmonton Oilers rights to 2035. The outlet announced a similar deal with the Calgary Flames not too long ago.
The 2026 NHL rights deal in Canada will change the national rights but Rogers Sportsnet definitely wants to stay in the local rights business.
On the U.S. side, Kevin Weekes will be a free agent from ESPN and the NHL Network. Weekes has come a long way from working on CBC, including the late Hockey Night in Canada game with Mark Lee.
My memory (not guaranteed) says ESPN had Weekes call a game on play by play and the Calgary Flames job is open. Not likely but an interesting thought if Weekes want to stretch himself.
We say every year that we have had enough of covering this league. No hasty decisions but your humble narrator is so tired.
photo credit: Rogers Sportsnet/NHL
Twitter captures: @Sportsnet (x2); @NHL (x2); @ctvedmonton; @awfulannouncing; @darthvanderlaan; @ryanlesliemedia; @SportsnetPR
