As I say every year once the playoffs are done, "Screw the NHL Hockey Awards, mine are the only ones that matter!" So without further ado, may I once more present --
DEBRA SHE WHO SEEKS'
2025 HOCKEY AWARDS
1. Best Sports Photojournalist of the Year
Toward the end of the regular season, The Rare One was gifted fabulous tix to an Edmonton Oilers home game -- ice level, front row seats, right beside the Oilers bench, can you imagine? She took this great shot of Connor McDavid and the other Oilers on her camera phone. She really captured his intensity!
2. Most Whimsical Rendition of a National Anthem
The clear winner in this category is The Harmonica Class from K-Town Senior & Community Center in Los Angeles, who performed the American National Anthem at the LA Kings home games in Round 1 of the playoffs. These ladies gave it everything they had and the crowd loved it!
3. Worst Pre-Game Opening Sequences
No one does eye-rollingly bad, over-the-top, goofy home game theatrics like the Vegas Golden Knights. Their gawdawful, Game of Thrones-ish parody of battling knights deserves the hardware in this category. What keeps this nonsense from being unwatchable? Simple --
It's cheesy.
They know it's cheesy.
They REVEL in its cheesiness.
4. Best Hockey-Related TV Ad
Hands down, no contest, the winner is the Penalty Box Commercial by Haribo Canada. I never tire of watching it. Giggle on, boys!
5. Hockey's Best Proud Ally Award
As always, this award goes to Gritty, mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers.
Well, the Florida Panthers have now won their second, back-to-back Stanley Cup, defeating the Edmonton Oilers in Game 6 of the Playoffs. And oh, how the rubber rats rained down on the ice!
So congrats to the Panthers.
This is how the Oilers will be spending their summer now until the next hockey season starts . . .
. . . and this is how we Oilers fans will be spending ours, alas.
But next year, we'll get that Cup! NEXT YEAR! *shakes fist*
In the Stanley Cup playoffs, all the Canadian teams are gone now except the Edmonton Oilers. The Oilers have made it to Round 3, the Western Conference Final, against the Dallas Stars. If they defeat Dallas, the Oilers will advance to Round 4 and play for the Stanley Cup itself, against whoever wins the Eastern Conference Final. Fingers crossed!
Now's the time for all fans of the other Canadian teams to get on the Oilers bandwagon! Everyone is welcome! And all you Americans whose teams have been eliminated are welcome too!
Game 1 of the Western Conference Final is tonight! Play La Bamba, Baby!
I know you'll all be thrilled to hear that Round 1 of this year's 4 rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs has now started, and that the Edmonton Oilers are once again making a run for the Cup (in Round 1, they're playing the Los Angeles Kings, as per usual).
You may remember that last year I shelled out a positively obscene amount of money to buy a lucky official NHL t-shirt to spur my team on to victory --
ButI'm one smart cookie, see? I don't need to spend that kind of money again thisyear, thanks to my trusty black Sharpie --
Alas, though, my clever thriftiness has been summarily thwarted by an unexpected development!
My other beloved hockey team, the Winnipeg Jets (who have been #1 all season and are playing the St. Louis Blues in Round 1) have just recently acquired a new player from the Seattle Kraken -- Brandon Tanev, one of my favourite Hockey Hair Gods. Here's his new official player photo wearing a Jets jersey while sporting his trademark stunned expression --
This unexpected development has now forced me -- forced me, I tellz ya -- to shell out another positively obscene amount of money to buy a new lucky Jets t-shirt to wear while watching their games too.
Jeez, has the NHL tagged me as a pathetically easy fleeceable pushover or what? (Rhetorical question only, NO need to answer it, thank you very much).
I really enjoyed watching the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. For two weeks, my TV setting scarcely left the CBC channel (the official Olympic network in Canada). It was like the "olden days" 60 years ago of being a kid growing up in a small prairie town in the middle of nowhere when the CBC was literally our one and only available TV channel, lol.
However, I have one major pet peeve about the Olympics -- all those #!@*&% athletes biting their #!@*&% medals! Gawd, I wish that hackneyed gesture would go the way of the dodo bird! By the end of the two weeks coverage, I was ready to put my foot through the TV screen every time I saw another athlete perform that stupid ritual.
In case you don't know why that gesture occurs, here's the background. Historically, tradespeople from long ago would bite gold coins to test their authenticity, since a comparatively soft metal like gold is susceptible to small dents or scratches from being bitten, unlike "fake gold coins" made of harder, inferior metals. Today, this biting gesture is an anachronism, of course. There is now very little actual gold in "gold" medals. However, the ritual is still performed by many athletes (regardless of whether their medal is gold, silver or bronze). It is, apparently, often done at the behest of photographers who see it as an iconic pose, no matter how clichéd it is.
Okay, rant over. At least for another two years until the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy.
Now that the Stanley Cup playoffs are over, it's time once again to hand out the only Hockey Awards that really matter! Screw the NHL's Hockey Awards, who needs 'em?
DEBRA SHE WHO SEEKS'
2024 PLAYOFF HOCKEY AWARDS
1. Best Promotional Item
**The Connor McDonut**
Produced by a local Edmonton donut shop, these big sugary confections in the Oilers team colours of orange and blue were only available for sale on game days. Diabeetus on a plate!
2. Best National Anthems Singer
**SoulBear at Winnipeg Jets home games**
SoulBear is an openly gay singer from Winnipeg with an outstanding voice! In the absence of a video yet to be posted from the Jets' 2024 playoff run, here's one from the Jets' 2022 Pride Night where SoulBear sings, a cappella, both the American and Canadian national anthems:
3. Best Superfan
It's a three-way tie among these intrepid Edmonton Oilers devotees:
**Superfan Magoo (Blair Gladue)**
**Banjoguy55 (Dave Steil)**
**Mama Stanley (Mary Loewen)**
And here's a snippet from a profile of Mama Stanley by the St. Albert Gazette --
Being Mama Stanley is no easy feat
for St. Albert’s Mary Loewen.
Two Oilers blazers, check. Chrome makeup, check.
Tinsel wig, got it. Finally, the crowning glory:
a homemade Stanley Cup hat she wears
on her head, adorned with 3,500 sequins,
each individually pinned on with little nails.
“It took my daughter and my grandson’s girlfriend
a long time to make that,” she said.
“Every time I go to Rogers [Arena], it’s always
my head that sets the security off.”
4. Most Heartbreaking Haircuts of 2024
Two of my former Hockey Hair Gods havecut their hair! Behold the Before & After Pix of my poor shorn sheep:
**Mark Stone (Vegas Golden Knights)**
**Igor Shesterkin (New York Rangers)**
I'm devastated.
But not for long . . . .
5. This Year's Hockey Hair God
**Sergei Bobrovsky, Russian goalie for the Florida Panthers**
Feast your eyes on those luscious locks, golden highlights and all!
This month's altar honours Nike, the Greek Goddess of Victory. I am shamelessly invoking her aid on behalf of the Edmonton Oilers to win the 2024 Stanley Cup! In the 7 game final series, the Oilers are down 3-2. They must win both the remaining 2 games to accomplish a rare "Reverse Sweep" in order to win the series and the Stanley Cup.
Nike presides over the Stanley Cup banner on the altar lit by orange and blue candles, the Oilers' team colours. My Nike statue is a reproduction of an ancient Etruscan statue which I bought about 20 years ago at West Edmonton Mall. She holds the laurel wreath of victory in one hand and the owl of wisdom in the other.
May we hear the Oilers' victory song play twice more -- once tonight and once again on Monday night!
