There are five days left in March, six games left on the schedule and the Flames are in Edmonton to play the Oilers on hockey night in Canada looking to close a two point gap to a playoff spot.
Period.
That’s all the city, the team and the media should be talking about right now. No blow up the team articles. No playing out the string articles. No off season transaction prognosis.
A win in Edmonton to keep the dream alive; the rest can be saved for another day.
To jump into the most mortem when mortem is still very much the case is a disservice to the hockey club and to the city.
Game Day Article
Why?
Firstly it’s not over. We all know the long odds, and the difficulties facing the team; the help they’ll need from others, and the clubsportsstats.com website that it seems every scribe in Calgary has found by perusing Calgarypuck.com in the last month.
Playoff races have a good dozen twists and turns before nonplayoff teams inevitably end up in a heap on April 9th. The latest swing (Ducks, Predators and Coyotes explode while the Flames stumble) could be the final twist of the season. Or there may be another coming. Bottom line those twists can’t happen if the Flames follow the guys in suites on their airplane and throw in the towel this morning. Win tonight and see what it means. Do the same on Wednesday, and then Saturday again. See where that leads you.
Secondly, the team and the city deserve to have a game this later matter this much. Two plus months of consistent winning suggest it’s deserved, and to take a pass on the excitement is both silly and a complete discredit to all the work that this team has done.
Season ticket holders were staring down 20 dates of playing out the string hockey in early December, instead they were treated to an improbable ride on a windy path that has the team in Edmonton on a wintery Saturday night.
Buy a case of beer, have some buddies over, serve chicken wings and nacho chips, simply embrace it.
Leave the procession march for the actual ceremony.
The team may be on life support but they is life. So have fun with it!
(ironically this writer wanted the team written off in January, so I’m well aware of my glass house)
