Glenn Kubish

Facts are facts, and, so, eventually (or in six games, whichever arrives first), we all have to face the Brad Marchands in our lives.  It is anathema for me to praise Florida Panthers winger Brad Marchand.  I am an Edmonton Oilers fan, and have been since the days of the World Hockey Association. I am an old-enough Oilers fan to have seen, with my own eyes, Jacques Plante play for Edmonton at the Coliseum against New England Whalers’ star Gordie Howe. I am a crazy-enough Oilers fan to have been arrested for throwing firecrackers onto Jasper Avenue during a Stanley Cup victory parade. (I was released because officers were more urgently needed up the block at a fur store break-in. When I say released, I mean from the neck.) I am a tradition-bound-enough Oilers fan to have passed on the identity to my sons. One of my grandsons walked around during the Cup playoffs with three stuffed toys: 1. Woody 2. Buzz Lightyear 3. Ryan Nuygent-Hopkins. No one should doubt my hometown team cre...

Three Things from Edmonton podcast, episode 120, is here for the listening. It is composed of three things I noticed I noticed made me feel happy and grateful. Give it a listen: Or give it a read, starting with: 1. Teamwork There was a play late in the Oilers series-winning game against the Los Angeles Kings that didn’t get enough attention from the professional sports pundits. It wasn’t a goal or pass or a hit or a forecheck or a fight. It wasn’t even a hockey-specific play. This is what happened. In front of his own net, Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner gave the puck away to the Kings’ Phillip Danault in a jaw-dropping piece of live, televised misfortune. Skinner’s stick had snapped. Danault scored. It was, as Harnarayan Singh on Hockey Night in Canada said: “Unbelievable!” The arena in Los Angeles was bonkers. Hockey fans knew that momentum had switched. Skinner, on one knee in his crease, looked as broken as his composite stick. What the cameras caught next ...

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 trian...

Paul Lorieau, the tenor who could make you forget there was a faceoff only a minute or so away, has died, and Edmonton today is full of stories and memories of the anthemic voice for decades of the Edmonton Oilers. In the Oilers' 2006 Stanley Cup run, Lorieau left us spellbound with his raised microphone, an invitation to the fans, so rousingly accepted, to sing the national anthem together. Think about that for just a second. The trained voice, the student of voice, the artist with the camera trained on him freely chooses silence, so that the full-throated, beer-holstered hockey throng could experience the joy of singing themselves into a northeast Edmonton night. Now, we contemplate the meaning of the silence choosing Paul Lorieau. Countless times on TV and many times in person in the Coliseum I experienced Lorieau's singing O Canada. Once, I met him. It was on a small rink that a band of friends at CTV Edmonton (Hoop, Raymo, Dub, Kobes)  watered into being on...

Tonight, the Edmonton Oilers lost to the Blue Jackets in a shootout, an outcome that sparked the firing of the Civil War-style cannon in the Columbus arena and the retreat of our youngest son to his room. Come on, boys. That's enough, already. Mikey is a big Oilers fan. Not a season-ticket holder, obviously, but a true fan just the same. When word broke on Twitter that the team was going to skate at the Hawrelak pond a few weeks ago, down went his undergrad art history textbooks and out the door he went. He was quoted in the Journal's account of the the shinny game. He was at OilersNation's 5th anniversary bash last week. No surprise, mind you. He was raised an Oilers fan. That's McGeough in the middle I first sensed what we had on our hands that November night in 2006. The whole family went to the Oilers game. It was against Dallas. And it was the game in which referee Mick McGeough entered the pantheon of villains when he whistled down a phantom hand pass b...