Oilers fans support unwavering despite Game 1 loss in Stanley Cup final
CBC
Downtown Edmonton was far more subdued Saturday night than it had been six days earlier, as the Oilers were shut out 3-0 in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final.
Many among the sea of blue and orange in Ice District, just outside Rogers Place, watched the game with bated breath, as the Oilers outshot the Florida Panthers nearly two-to-one. But Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky was impenetrable.
Oilers Nation is still confident in their boys, though.
"We're OK. This is the first game. I'm not worried at all," said Camryn Braun, who is from Calgary but was at Saturday's street party in Edmonton. "We've got a long series."
Spencer Gillespie, who joined Braun from Calgary, echoed her sentiments.
"The Oilers were built to resist the trials," Gillespie said. "We've been through it."
Saturday's game marked the Oilers' first championship series match in 18 years. Most players on the team have never gone this deep in the playoffs, while the Panthers are looking for redemption after finishing as last year's runners-up.
The Panthers notched an early lead, slipping the puck past Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner in the first period, then again in the second. Florida pocketed an empty-netter in the dying seconds of the game.
WATCH | Oilers team, fans weigh in on Game 1 loss:
"I wasn't predicting a win, but I wasn't predicting a loss," said Keegan Cooper, a Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., resident who attended Saturday's street party. "I knew it was going to be tough."
Lamar Joseph, an international student from Miami, was a spot of red amongst the Edmonton crowd Saturday, sporting a Florida Panthers jersey.
"I had a couple of people boo me, a couple of people heckle me, but at the end of the day we still came away with the win," said Joseph, who attends the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton.
The Oilers have a reputation for failing to play well in the opening game of a playoff series. So far in this year's playoffs, their record is 2-2 in Game 1.
They have, however, split the first two games of each playoff series thus far. So Oilers fans believe the team has the Panthers in their scope.
Aggressive patients and lack of security are making nurses feel unsafe in a rural Western Manitoba emergency union, says the Manitoba Nurses Union.
Saskatoon resident Delynne Bortis knew her commute to work Tuesday morning would be particularly difficult.
WARNING: This story contains details of abuse and intimate partner violence:
The amount of money it takes for people to earn a living wage has increased across the province, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The new owner of Ontario steelmaker Stelco says his company "will not disappoint the people of Hamilton and Nanticoke," where the business's major facilities are based.
A Winnipegger is warning others about an intricate scam she says she almost fell for.
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.