"Awww, that’s a real shame.
Hopefully that wonderful Edmonton fanbase can look back fondly on this near miss when their franchise moves to Houston in 5 years."
I can't reply to your post directly since the thread is closed, so I am just going to do something a little weird and post it here.
I just want to say I am a huge fan of your sports takes and you almost always are the voice of reason. But your take on Edmonton is such boring childish tribalism. Whether it be insulting McDavid as the whiniest player in the league, or commenting that the building is dead and the fanbase is super quiet, or joking that they' be leaving in a few years. Whatever silly hyperbole it is, it's quiet a contrast to your usual voice of reason. As a born and bred Canucks fan who lives in Edmonton and has experienced what a crazy fanbase the Oilers have, it's kind of sad that someone so smart comes across so ill-informed just because they can't extract the us vs them homerism from their childhood.
Like I've said before here :
I cheered for that team in 2006. I thought it was nice given how dire the franchise looked a few years before, and at that point I actually bought into the 'oh, it would be nice to see a Canadian team win the Cup' thing. I genuinely wanted them to do well. Most of our fanbase was the same.
Then 2011 happened. And the absolute vindictive hate that fanbase and media had for our team was beyond belief. It was like Celtic-Rangers kind of stuff, out of nowhere. Their media like Spector were openly campaigning against us. Fans were celebrating when we lost. It was nuts. And after that I said that hell would freeze over before I ever gave an iota of support to that shitty city and shitty fanbase ever again.
On top of that, the Oiler fans on this board this year are a trainwreck. One guy has made like 10000 posts denigrating the Canucks. Hasn't exactly convinced me that anything has changed. Nor has that dipstick Gazdik.
And, I mean, sports are allowed to be tribal. That's, like, the whole deal in European soccer.
