Valhalla Island

Disclaimer: I am a Calgary Flames fan.

Last night the Calgary Flames beat the Edmonton Oilers 3-1 in Edmonton. That puts the Flames 2 games to 1 over the Oilers this season. My floor in residence is full of extremely passionate Oiler fans. So when the Flames beat the Oilers I really give it to them — as I have the right to do. In rebuttal I’m faced with the most ridiculous argument.

Of course, the main argument is “You’re an Australian, you don’t know anything about hockey”. Fair enough, even though the team I support beat the team you hockey-knowledgeable Canadianss support. But there’s one argument that always gets me which until I was hit with this bomb on Twitter, I had no intention to blog about.

First, a little season 07/08 Flames/Oilers history.

Game 1 in Calgary — Calgary win 4-1 in an extremely convincing and devastating victory.

Game 2 in Edmonton — The Oilers win 4-2 in a hard fought and physical battle. This was best game of hockey I’ve ever seen — everything good about local derby hockey. Edmonton deserved the victory though.

Game 3 in Edmonton — Flames win 3-1 in another convincing win, despite some amazing saves from Garon, it was a boring game.

After the game I make a Twitter post in the same vein that I’d taunt my floormates with after an Oiler loss. Then, just like the ridiculous arguments I’m faced with on my floor I get this Twitter reply from TemporalSolider:

@jimwhimpey good for Calgary. I will be the sportsman. I won’t point to the fact that Edmonton has more Stanley Cups…oh sorry.

OK, so Edmonton have won 5 Stanley Cups to Calgary’s 1. Guess when their last Stanley cup win was? It was 1989-1990, yes, 17 years ago - yet it seems to be completely relevant when talking about a Calgary victory just yesterday. This argument has been brought up by more than 5 Oiler fans since the beginning of the season.

With this logic the gold medalists from the 1960 Melbourne Olympic games should be standing on the podium next to Beijing’s gold medalists.