It might not quite be the western equivalent of death and taxes, but if you were a young male in Vancouver in the 1980s there were a few near certainties: You sported some form of hockey hair, you ate White Spot burgers at least three times a week and your love for the Canucks was eclipsed only by your hatred of the Calgary Flames.
The Oilers? They weren’t worth the wasted emotion. By the time your blood began to boil, they had you down 5-0 anyway. Why bother?
It was the Flames’ red blood we wanted. If there was a self-help group for Flames-haters, I might have been spotted in front of the gathering, uttering the words “I’m Brad, and I have a problem.”
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The anger reached its zenith during the five-year period from 1989 to 1994 when the Canucks and Flames played two of the most memorable seven-game series ever. By geography and circumstance, I had taken my modified mullet to school in Calgary, where I found myself surrounded by new friends and local media who never shut up about how good the Flames were. And to be fair, they were very good — Doug Gilmour, Al MacInnis, Joe Mullen, Joe Nieuwendyk, Gary Roberts — and poised for the city’s first Stanley Cup.
The Canucks were 46 points behind the Flames as they prepared for a 1989 first-round meeting. (Yes, 46!)
Still, I held out that our rookie saviour Trevor Linden could deliver, and when the expanded Sports at 11 Calgary TV panel all picked the Flames to sweep, it was on.
When former Flame Paul Reinhart scored to give Vancouver Game 1, it was really on. There were no message boards or Twitter feeds back then but I did give pause to phoning the TV station to… say… what exactly? “Na na na boo boo?”
Suddenly there was hope. And with that hope came, of course, more hate. That hate built up to a boiling point in a ridiculously dramatic Game 7 at the Saddledome that featured one of the most wide-open overtime periods you could ever witness. After Mike Vernon stopped three point-blank Canucks chances that would have ended the Flames’ season, I can still hear the great Bob Cole extolling the virtues of the Calgary goalie as only he can: “How long can he keep this up?!”
Long enough, it turned out, for Joel Otto to score a goal that wouldn’t have counted 10 years later. (But, thanks to rule changes last summer, would again be a “good hockey goal” by today’s standards.)
As the Flames and their fans celebrated, I sat in front of the TV for a half-hour, wondering when the officials were going to finally come to their senses, realize Otto had kicked it in and keep playing.
I probably sat there until the teams met again in the first round half a decade later — figuratively, at least.
Ah, 1994. (I pause while every Canucks fan returns to their happy place…)
Pavel Bure would score the most dramatic goal in Canucks history to win in Game 7. Another Game 7 that, again, went to overtime — this time, for two periods.
What happened next was likely a culmination of all the previous years of pent-up anger towards that Calgary team. Perhaps it was that glorious moment that allowed me to finally release the hate I’d been harbouring for the Flames. Perhaps I was just so overjoyed I lost control of myself. But more than likely, it was simply my inner idiot that made me openly swear at Calgary (the whole city?) at the top of my lungs.
I was back in B.C. by then, and the reaction to my outburst from my friends was an awakening. Remember that self-help group I mentioned earlier? The way they paused and stared at me felt like an intervention. Clearly they were also enjoying the win, but they didn’t seem to share my utter disdain for the Flames.
Message received. Sports fan adulthood had arrived. It just took me a little longer to get there.
Over two decades later, I anxiously anticipate another installment between the Canucks and Flames, both of which bucked the odds to get here.That 46-point gap in 1989 is replaced by just four this year, just as the height of my anger has been replaced by a healthy level of gentle dislike.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still hope for another Canucks win. It just won’t affect my health and well being as it likely once did.
I swear.
