Taking Game 6

So you lose game 4, your down 3 games to 1 in the series and you're heading back to hostile territory for the fifth game. Once there you slap your opponents around for 60min and then some just to rub some more salt into the wound by scoring a shorty in the extra frame. Now you're down in the series 3-2 heading back to Oil Country to face elimination once again in game 6, what do you do?, long answer short you light'em up and force game 7.

Like many fans of hockey and international football I've been living a double life in Edmonton for the past week and a bit, England supporter by day and Oiler fan by night. With the World Cup having kicked-off on June 9th it's been long days of getting up at 10 to 7 in the morning to watch the national teams play, working when it's not raining, and watching the Oil play in the finals.

The Players:

Pat
Bryan
Keith
Korie
Jessie
Rodney
Katie

Location: Chilli's Whyte Ave
Time: 2:30 - late

Getting up to watch the first match of the day was certainly a task seeing as 5hrs earlier I had been dragged out to be the navigator for my sister as she had to pick up her friend from Union. Planning on getting up early to watch the Portuguese play Iran I had decided not to go out the night before to the Gas Pump and try to get some sleep, that didn't work out too well in end.

So I was up early to watch the matches which would last until around 3pm, leaving about 3hrs of dead time to waste until the Oilers took to the ice for game 6. About mid-way through the first half of the Italy/U.S. match Jessie and I decide to head down to Whyte to catch the the 2nd half and get some early seats for the Oilers game. Bryan caught wind of the plan and decided to get his brother Rodney to drive us down there so everyone going could drink. On the way we got a calls from Keith and Korie, once filled in on the plan they would both join us. Taking Gretzky (75st) down to Whyte gave us a chance to see where exactly Brenna and Francine had parked when they met up with us after the Oil won the Western Conference. Seeing it in the light of day and sober astonished us even more as it was about 25 streets away from the bulk of Whyte.

Once on the ave we realized that even though we were there long before the game began getting a good table at any bar would be a difficult task. Chilli's seemed like a good choice since the majority of us had decided we were hungry and could go for some food, lucky for us there was a table right below a nice plasma that was in Hd. We all order our food and decided to start the drinking in hopes we'd be nicely buzzed for the puck drop. Bryan, Keith, and I all started with some tropical tequila drinks while Jessie and Korie both hit the Rickard's Red. After a couple of the fruit drinks I switched to the Red and Bryan followed suit. The crowd at Chilli's was "mixed" to put it best. With young and old and a bunch of different ethnic groups it was obvious that Chilli's wasn't the first option that most people had tried that day. Long before the game started the place was full and many people were turned away at the door, much to the amusement of the others aswell as myself. After a bit of time our waitress, I believe her name was Ciara, informed us that her shift was over so another girl would be taking her place. As the new girl arrived she informed us that because it was Happy Hour all our drinks were $3.99 which in translation to us meant it was time to start drinking more. With the puck soon to drop we all agreed, though some a bit more reluctantly than others, that with each Oiler goal a round of tequlia was to be put back. At the end of the game we'd celebrate the victory with a final shot. This would follow on in the tradition that was started in the Anaheim series which I beleive was derived from the Ace Of Base tequila shot.

When the puck actually dropped we had all consumed a fair deal of alcohol but eveyone seemed to holding their own. I don't figure there's much point in descibing the game as everyone should already know the outcome. During the game our original waitress ?Ciara? returned for some reason and was more than willing to bring us more beers and rounds of tequila. When the game was over we had all had five rounds of tequila which accounted for a big chunk of our tab that totalled just under $400. With the tequila counting for about $125 the rest went towards our Happy Hour beer and tropical drinks. Needless to say when we left Chilli's we were all feeling pretty good. However, I'm sad to say that the celebration on Whyte was less than enjoyable.

The crowd was enthusiastic but the police presence was not. If ever there was a manual for cops on how to act like complete dicks, the majority of them had read it. As they imposed the most ridiculous rules on the crowd such as not being able to cross the ave except at 109st and just east of Gateway, no walking on the roads, and no stopping on the sidewalks even if it's to line up for a bar like Devlin's or Savoy. Most of the police acted like the were the border guards in East Germany keeping people from scaling the Berlin Wall. I wouldn't be able to count the number of times on my fingers that I saw them committing acts that would be considered conduct unbecoming an officer. So after a number of times that we weren't able to go into bars cause they were full and were unable to wait in line we were starting to get ticked off. At some point Korie made the long trek to one of the streets to cross over and meet up with his girl at Saphire which left the group to be made up of Bryan, Jessie, Keith, and myself. After a bit of meandering around and being warned of the numerous "laws" we were breaking we decided to get the hell out of there before any of us got arrested.

So I called my sis figuring she'd most likely come and get us considering I navigated for her in the early morning and she did agree to as long as we'd meet her at the Earl's on campus. As we made the long trip to Earl's we found ourselves behind a group of girls wearing Oilers gear that we harassed for the majority of the way, Laraque in particular. After denying Bryan food from Tim Horton's my sister picked us up and that's pretty much where our night ended.

What started off as a great day of football, hockey, and booze was dampened by the police regime that marched on Whyte that night.

I look forward to doing it again next year.

Well, at least the hockey and booze part.