It’s a rare comeback down 3 games to none, but the Edmonton Oilers have done just that against the Florida Panthers in this year’s Stanley Cup tournament and tonight someone’s taking home the hardest to win trophy in sports!
Game 7s, no matter what stage in the Stanley Cup playoffs, are almost always gems, the most intense, go-for-broke yet highly cautious matches. I used to cover NHL games for a year in 1999 and Game 7s were always the most palatable, the most buzzworthy. When a Game 7 is played for all the marbles like tonight, it’ll either be balls-out mayhem or a chess match on ice.
This ad from the 1988 Stanley Cup Finals says it all, which is not to give a predetermined outcome for the 2024 edition, even if Edmonton won it all behind the immortal Wayne Gretzky in 1988. Will current Oilers captain Connor McDavid replicate the same magic, or will Alexander Barkov lead Florida to a home ice lifting of Lord Stanley’s hardware?
We’ll know by the end of the night, but don’t be surprised if it takes double or even triple overtime to settle this thing. Like this old ESPN ad says, it’s time to get serious.
–Ray Van Horn, Jr.
Roads Lesser Traveled 
Let’s Go Oilers, Let’s Go!!
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Well, there are three Swedes playing for Edmonton Oilers: Mattias Ekholm, Mattias Janmark, and Philip Broberg and six Swedes playing for Florida Panthers : Gustav Forsling, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Rasmus Asplund, Tobias Björnfot, Magnus Hellberg, Kevin Stenlund, one of them Magnus Hellberg from the town where I studied (Uppsala), therefore I am going to have to cheer for Florida Panthers. But it will certainly is a good game, 1 – 1, as of now.
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Nice! Watching really old hockey games on various ESPN channels always reminds me of how Jason Voorhees movies “ruined” the classic goalie masks for some NHL fans.
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I see that ad, I think, “Why doesn’t Jason have his machete?”
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