Login

trella · 12-13-2018, 11:46 PM

I can still picture the day vividly. Earlier that afternoon, before Game 6 of our series vs Winnipeg, I saw a shot of a massive crowd around Winnipeg Arena and while there were plenty of Jets jerseys, I could spot hundreds, hell, thousands of powder blue Blizzard jerseys. I was so shocked to see so many of our fans booked a flight or drove thirteen hours to come support us on the brink of elimination. I almost couldn't even understand it.

In the locker room before the game, I kept picturing the shot over and over in my head:
Look at that. Look at how many people came out here to see us. How could we let them down?
I showed the guys in the room, they were moved. Scholz was moved almost to tears. The boys were fired up, they were fired up to all hell. We were ready to win this Game 6. We were going to complete the reverse sweep. For the fans, for the city of Edmonton, for us. The veterans on the team have worked too hard and too long to fail now. This was finally the year. We had the best team we ever had, we won the President's Trophy. We had elite talent up and down our whole lineup. We had the momentum. This game was ours.

The visiting team... the EDMONTONNNNN BLIZZZZZARD roared the announcer. Boos from the Jets fans caused the arena to tremble. But as I looked around, I saw the fans, I saw our fans cheering their heart out. I saw a kid, maybe 7 years old with a sign with my name on it. I was going to play my heart out tonight.

The Jets were called out onto the ice. Visser, Bearss, Arrivabene, McClure, and Weber were met with thundering cheers. Oh Canada was sang. It was go time.

Both teams came out flying, feeding off of the energy of the crowd. They fought hard, but we fought harder. We wanted this.

14 minutes is, Hansen intercepts a pass and headmans it to Cukurs. He skates into the zone... I'm wide open! The puck comes to me right on my stick and I one time it ho-

Zhumbayev's glove appears in an instant as he sprawls out to keep the game tied. He stares me down as I stare up at the ceiling.

The period ends scoreless, we were in this. We held off the Jets in their own barn and we were ready to go the distance.

In the locker room, captain Knouse steps up:
"Boys, we knew this game wouldn't be easy, but look at us out there! We're flying! This is our game! They can't skate with us, they can't fucking hang! We're knocking on the door in this one, hell Teddy got robbed, a little luck and we're up in this game. Let's go out there and fucking show 'em what we're made of!"

We come out of the locker room fired up for the second period and it showed. We were all over the Jets, skating around like we hadn't been playing games every other day for the past few weeks. It felt like nothing could stop us.

Every thing was going grea- Boom. The rookie, Manius scores and takes the wind out of our sails. The arena erupted, I was sure that the roof was gonna come off the place. The bench went silent, was this really it?

Knouse stands up and bangs his stick on the boards, "Let's go boys, we're only halfway through this game, it's so far from over!"

And almost as it was fate, Cory goes out there 40 seconds later and puts us on the board. We were tied, we had come back, this was our game now. The boys were jumping out of their shorts.

5 minutes later our horse, our engine, Oisin Fletcher snipes a beauty and we were up. We had a fucking lead! I grab my liney's on the left and right of me, Cukurs and Smyth, "THIS IS IT BOYS, WE GOT THIS!" Cukurs, in broken English, "WE ARE GOING TO HAVE SO MANY POTAT TONIGHT MY FRIEND!"

The buzzer sounds and the second period is over, score 2-1 in favor of the Blizzard. We get to the room and we are hyped as you could ever be. The atmosphere in that room was like something I couldn't describe. Scholz quiets it down, "This isn't over yet".

We come out for the third period with lazer focus, ready to push the series to a Game 7 at home after being down 3. We had all the energy, all the momentum. Nothing could stop us now.

...Except that. Arrivabene takes a wrister from the boards and Tuck doesn't see it. The game's tied. We couldn't believe it. It felt like all the energy was sucked out of us. The arena was exploding. We continued to fight tooth and nail, trying our damn hardest to put this away but to no avail.

Save by Zhumbayev, save by Zhumbayev, save by Zhumbayev. The man was in his zone. He was stopping everything without any trouble it felt like. The guy was a brick wall. All we needed was one bounce. I believed in us.

14 minutes into the third, Smyth recieves the breakout pass from McIntryre. He sees my cutting in behind the defense, I'm gone. The puck comes my way and my heart starts beating a million beats a second. I reach back to receive the puck but all I see is a blur fly in front of me. Hefeweizen picks off the pass and he passes it to Crossfit Jesus going the other way... he's in alone...

Goal.

Just like that, we were down. We were down with only 6 minutes to go. I couldn't believe it. This can't be happening again, I thought. We seriously can't be losing to these fucking Jets again.

I was wrong. We could. The clock ticks down to zero, and with it, our season. The buzzer sounds. Pure Heartbreak. I look down the bench and all I see is disappointment, frustration, and sadness. Scholz looks down, defeated. The poor old man has been fighting so long with this new generation of Blizzard. He looks burnt out. Cukurs and I look at each other, another playoff failure.

We walked out of the arena in silence, there wasn't a word.

"This team is too god damn good for this" I mutter.

And too good for it we were. Just like season 39, and 40, and 41, and 42.

It was at that point that I thought we just might never win it. It just wasn't meant to be.

But I remebered back to the thousands of fans traveling all this way to see us. I remembered the kid with the sign.

No, this isn't it. We'll be back.

Thanks to @karey and @JSS for the sigs!

Former USA Fed Head, Carolina Kraken Co-GM, Tampa Bay Barracuda GM

karlssens · 12-13-2018, 11:53 PM

chills. good shit trella Blizzard

Zombiewolf · 12-14-2018, 12:58 AM

Thank you Brandon, Fish, GeckoeyGecko, Karey, Kit, takethehorizon, and Ragnar for the sigs!
[Image: Pw202QP.jpeg]

Player Page || Update page

Blastmeaway · 12-14-2018, 03:24 AM

SO MANY POTAT

Shout out to ml002, schultzy, slashacm, tedward!
[Image: blastmeaway.gif]

I

I

I

I

09-05-2018, 10:04 PMBeaver Wrote: Wow look what the PT affiliation has done to our pristine league.

12-19-2018, 12:31 AMBeaver Wrote: I personally blame the PT affiliation for handing out massive amounts of free TPE to all these players, inflating the TPE they're at when they get called up.

[Image: Capture21.PNG?width=400&height=90]

Evok · 12-14-2018, 10:26 AM

**.bojo** · 12-14-2018, 11:11 AM

12-14-2018, 10:26 AMEvok Wrote:

I'm seeing him in march

Navigation

Extra Menu

About us