The Battle of Alberta

Jerome Iginla leads the Flames with 11 goals this season

Saturday night was Oilers @ Flames on Hockey Night in Canada, and the first Battle of Alberta I’ve watched in its entirety. Iginla had 2 goals, one of them an empty net, in Calgary’s 3-0 win over Edmonton. Being more of an Oiler/Nugent-Hopkins fan, I was a bit disappointed, but it was an exciting and scoreless game for the first 33 minutes. The two teams seemed pretty evenly matched until midway through the second period, when the shots were announced in favor of the Flames, 24-11. That’s when Tom Kostopoulos scored from right in front of the net, on a power play caused by his stick getting slashed by Gagner. Despite the surprise from the commentators that Khabibulin wasn’t playing, Dubnyk did a pretty good job, making 31 saves. (He had quite a good retro-like mask too)

I think I have to say from the standpoint of a Leafs fan in the Eastern time zone, the battle of Alberta is THE NEW battle of Ontario. For one thing, CMU’s dorm cable for some reason gets the Montreal feed of CBC instead of Windsor or Toronto. (I don’t know why) So on Saturday at 7p.m. I’ve recently ended up with the Montreal game, unless of course they’re playing the Maple Leafs. Toronto doesn’t even play on every Saturday night anymore. The west coast HNIC games are pretty much my version of Saturday Night Live. It’s a sneak-peek into the Western Conference, which I don’t see much of besides the Red Wings and whoever they’re playing from out there. So whoever it is playing, Vancouver, Edmonton, or Calgary, I usually really enjoy watching it. And if it’s any of these Canadian teams playing one of the others, especially Calgary & Edmonton, it’s a BIG deal. Even if I’m only tuned in a little while, it’s something I don’t get to see very often. Plus, since I hope to someday call play-by-play for hockey games, Mark Lee is one commentator I love to hear, even more than Bob Cole at this point. A hybrid sound of Lee and Cole is what I hope to someday sound like.

It’s an exciting time in Edmonton, great young players like RNH, Hall, Eberle, Paajarvi, and a better start than they’ve had in the past seasons. A playoff spot is possibly on the way.