Three Things from Edmonton -- Episode 116: 48, 49, 50


It’s the end of the week, the Oilers are playoffs-bound, and, sure, McDavid has been elevated to minor deity status here, but, have y’all been watching Draisaitl?! This week’s three things:

                           

1. 48 

The Oilers star Leon Draisaitl needed three goals to get to 50 goals for the season. The Oilers were playing the Anaheim Ducks, a team good for everyone’s statistics. Shelagh and I were at the Banff Centre, listening to the long-long-short-long of the poetic freight train moving through town while we watched the game on TV. 


Through centre ice, three Oilers, Evander Kane, Draisaitl and Brett Kulak, skated astride each other against two Ducks defencemen and one back-checking teammate. Kane carried the puck up the right wing and over the blue line. Kulak skated full throttle for the far post. Draisaitl hung back. The horizontal line of the Oilers attack had transformed into a triangle. Euclid nodded. The fans at Rogers Place rose in anticipation. We edged forward on the love seat. 


Kane neutralized two Ducks with a neat pass to Draisaitl. Kulak, playing decoy, turned the remaining defender, who was forced to mark him all the way to the net, into a lame duck easily deked around by Draisaitl who hovered in alone toward the goaltender. He artfully shifted the puck from his forehand to his backhand and scored.


As a boy learning hockey, I loved the backhand. It was easier to get the puck off the ice with the backhand than with a wrist shot or a slapshot, both of which required some coordination and power. A puck in the air is what I wanted. Back then, everyone used straight sticks (no curve to the blade, that is) that made it easy to launch pucks off the ice—and the higher the better. Pucks flew over the boards into the snow behind St. Francis Church during practice and over the chain link fence behind the net at St. Mary’s arena on 137 Avenue. Then, progress happened. The Victoriaville straight blade gave way to the Koho curve, the shape of which made it easier to elevate the puck with a forehand shot but harder to get the puck off the ice with a backhand. And, so, the backhand was left behind with other things of childhood. 

Draisaitl’s scoring on the backhand was like a master musician playing a refurbished period instrument. Bravo!


2. 49 

The difference between watching a hockey player try to score a goal and being a hockey player trying to score a goal is radical. The screaming fan in the stands at Grand Trunk Arena is not in the arena of action. The fan might be nervous, and, indeed, might even be jumping up and down, but observing is not doing. The fan feels none of the visceral anxiety of the young player on the ice in position to score. The fan is not on the pointed tip of the attack. For the player, everything has come down to this instant. Space and time constrict as defenders move desperately to stop the chance. The heart beats quicker. The hands squeeze the stick tighter. Putting the puck in the net, even what looks from the seats like an empty net, is a feat—a double feat, actually. Overcoming the opposing players only sets the stage for overcoming one’s self. At least that was my experience playing and then coaching minor hockey. You could have all kinds of set plays to break out of your own zone, Xs and Os to turn a 2-on-2 into a 2-on-1, schemes for a shot from the point on the powerplay and so on. Scoring an actual goal was something different. It’s a different game. 


Okay, point anticipated and taken: it did appear to be not much of an elite maneuver for Draisaitl to retrieve on his backhand the puck from the below the goal line, bring it back to his forehand, keep it from being speared away by frantic Ducks, and then to coolly deposit it in the back of the net for goal #49. But, bear in mind, he did all of this standing still, keeping his head while all those around him were losing theirs. 


3.  50
 
Draisaitl’s third goal came on a wrist shot from 51 unobstructed feet out, which means he threw a dart for a bull’s eye. I had the TV audio from Rogers Place down, but the Facebook Messenger audio from Tulsa up.


Our friend David had called from Oklahoma to catch up on things. We talked long enough to kinda be together 2,800 km apart to see Draisaitl’s 50th goal and watch the ball caps from the faithful float down like paratroopers. Tip of the hat—h/t as the texters put it— Leon Draisaitl. Thanks for helping liberate the game. 


Thanks for being out there friends. 



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