Safeway's Cold Christmas

Not only are Safeway employees in Alberta set to strike in several store locations, but Marion Gaborik's neo-pseudo Darryl Sittler-esque performance against the New York Rangers must really have the executives at Safeway head office trembling.

For years, on several local broadcasts of Oilers, Flames, Canucks, (Jets?), etc, Safeway has offered a chance for a viewer to win $1,000,000 should any player score five (5) goals in one game. I used to chortle mightily whenever they would announce this "contest", knowing full well that the Todd Eliks and Steven Rices of the world were in no danger of padding my pocket with a cool mil with their dump-and-chase antics.

Well, now hope has filled me - Marion Gaborik's impressive five-goal performance against the Rangers is the first serious threat to Safeway's comfort level since, oh, the last player to score five goals in a game - ELEVEN years ago. Sergei Fedorov did it, scoring all five Red Wing goals, including the overtime winner, in a 5-4 win over Washington. I don't have my Official Guide and Record Book next to me, so I can't tell you when the last a time a player on a Canadian team scored five, but I'll bet you it was long before any Safeway marketing exec thought up this contest. And I'll bet you he was likely wearing #99 for the Oilers, too.

Speaking of five goal games, here's my amazing true story. My first ever Oilers game I ever saw was on my birthday on February 3, 1984. As a young Oilers fan, I was so excited to see Gretzky, Messier, Kurri, et al. Well, all three of those players were hurt and not playing. For Gretzky, it was the first game since his NHL record 51-game point streak had been snapped, and, as he was playing hurt towards the end of that streak, he took this game off. It was only his second NHL game missed in five years! And it had to be the one game that I actually went to!

Anyway, all was not lost, because the Oilers still had a third line checker named Pat Hughes. Hughes went on to have the night of his life, scoring five goals in a 10-5 Oilers win over the dreaded Calgary Flames. When a guy like Pat Hughes can score five in a game, there's hope for all of us. Don't forget to shop at Safeway. There might be a million dollars in it for you!

P.S. If Safeway workers DO go on strike, please DON'T shop at Safeway. I can never condone crossing strike barriers.

Default : The Two Sweetest Words In The English Language

...as said by a great man once. Thanks to the Hungry Beavers and the Xtreme moving up, the Bee Sharps are now, by default, in first place in Division V. Kinda like when Gerald Ford got to be president when Nixon made a wrong turn into a career as a surveillance agent. Yeah, just like that (hence the cover photo. O, what a tenuous link that is.)

Still, this is no mean feat for us, because we've historically stumbled in the later months of the calendar year. Who can forget our mighty swoon in the winter of 2003-04, when we lost seven straight games? (Well, a lot of people, actually, but that's what the "History" section of the website is for.)

Actually, we've historically stumbled in most parts of the year, truth be told. To be six games over .500 at any time of the season is enough for a double-take. Actually, April has always been a good month for us, in the regular season, anyway. Can you believe we've only lost one out of six regular season games in April? Of course, most of those games came after we were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, so we had no pressure at all on us. One of these days, I'll display some of the amazing and completely useless stats, like :

- What our win-loss records are wearing our white and our blue jerseys
- Our records in various rinks that we've played in
- Etc.

The mind boggles at the knowledge that you, dear reader, will glean from this website over the coming weeks and months. Boggles....

So, in conclusion, first place, yay, good luck to the Xtreme, and all that.