Game seven of any hockey series is always an exciting time. Win or lose, you either is or you ain’t. A Flames fan, that is.
I had the honour of attending my first playoff game ever last Tuesday, from whence this photo comes. We lost, but we persevere, and continue to play on tonight.
I don’t know how we’ll do tonight. As a write, we seem a bit nervous. This is Iron Mike’s tenth game seven, and Stephan Yelle’s eleventh, both records apparently. That doesn’t matter. What matters is which Flames team will show up tonight.
It is ours to lose.
What I can comment on is the culture of hockey, as compared between Calgary and San Jose.
Here in hockeytown, we wear our jerseys on game day. The famous “C of Red” lives on, with 85% of the attendees to the game in jerseys. Not red, not merely t-shirts, but real , live jerseys.
San Jose? They wave these stupid looking pompoms. (But hey, they scored the first goal tonight, so what does that say?)
But can you really take seriously a team that has a saxophonist play the national anthems? Even if they go on to win, I could never.
So Go Flames! We’re proud of you no matter what happens.
(Iggie rules. Tying the game, he is one of the top players in the game. And he’s ours!)