A Rivalry to Ignite the Flames : Crowning Moment for Calgary Was in Beating Edmonton

Rivalries provide a lot of the spice in sports. Lakers and Celtics? Dodgers and Giants? USC and UCLA? Dynamite, all.

But even in the great white north, blood can run hot when it comes to rivalries.

Consider that a crowd of more than 20,000 fans showed up at the airport in Calgary, Canada, to welcome home the Flames after they knocked the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Edmonton Oilers out of the National Hockey League playoffs last Wednesday night in Edmonton.

The crowd at the airport, which had to wait outside about two hours in 32-degree weather, burned effigies of the Oilers to celebrate the victory over their most cordially hated rival.

“This was their Stanley Cup,” said Badger Bob Johnson, the Flames’ coach, of the enthusiastic rooters. “I’ve been here four years and to beat (the Oilers) four times, and three times at home, is amazing.”

Even Johnson, not a particularly excitable person, managed to get caught up in the rivalry. “I had a seven-point plan to beat them,” he said conspiratorially. “But I can’t tell you what it was. I’m going to bottle it up and save it for next year.”

Police reported that another 4,000 fans were in downtown Calgary celebrating. Streets in the Electric Avenue section of downtown, which is dotted with bars and pubs, were closed to cars because they were clogged.

And the demand for Flames’ playoff tickets was fierce. Despite the cold, fans camped out at the Calgary Olympic Saddledome, waiting for a chance to buy tickets to the series between the Flames and St. Louis Blues for the Wales Conference championship. Game 3 of that series, tied at 1-1, will be played tonight in St. Louis.

Old-timers in Calgary say that they haven’t seen anything like this Flames’ fever since 1948, when the Calgary Stampeders won the Canadian Football League title. Fans celebrated then by riding their horses through the downtown section of town.

Calgary, except during the Stampede, a rodeo and fair held every July, is normally a pretty mellow town.

But Cowtown, as Calgary is called, is jumping now.

The phone has been ringing off the hook at the Flames’ offices in the Saddledome with requests for playoff tickets, all of which were sold to season ticket-holders. The Flames have been sold out for every game since they moved to Calgary from Atlanta in 1980.

The Flames have never been to the Stanley Cup finals. The closest they came was in 1981, when they lost to Minnesota in the semifinals, four games to two.

The Saddledome seats 16,672, but another 2,800 seats will be added for the 1988 Winter Olympics. A team official said that they could have easily sold those extra seats for the playoffs this season.

The Saddledome has been a sea of red for the playoffs, with nearly all the fans dressed in the team color.

During the series against the Oilers--which will probably be the longest remembered, no matter how far the Flames advance--one fan, calling himself the grim reaper, dressed in a black robe and a hood, and during a TV interview said that he had come to bury the Oilers.

Laurence Decore, the mayor of Edmonton, lost a bet to Calgary Mayor Ralph Klein.

Decore will have to climb to the top of the Petro-Chem building, the tallest in Calgary, and wave a Flames flag while wearing a Calgary sweater.

The reason for the intense rivalry has something to do with familiarity. Calgary and Edmonton are only about 180 miles apart in the province of Alberta. Edmonton is the provincial capital but Calgary is the financial capital.

The local press calls their bickering the Alberta Civil War.

Said a former Oiler assistant coach: “This is what a hockey rivalry is all about. The coaches hate each other, the players hate each other and the cities hate each other.”

But Edmonton, the Stanley Cup champion the last two seasons, dominated the rivalry until the Flames stunned them last week.

This has been a year of upsets in the topsy-turvy NHL playoffs, but Calgary’s shocking dethronement of the Oilers, who were in the finals the last three seasons, may rank as one of the major upsets of all time.

Cliff Fletcher, the Flames’ general manager, said that his team took even more satisfaction in beating the Oilers because of all the past defeats it had suffered.

“You’re reminded of it (the Oilers’ past dominance) every single day,” Fletcher said after the Flames had won the seventh game, 3-2. “They beat us a lot and, let’s face it, they like to rub your nose in it. Yes, there’s some satisfaction.”

The Oilers won two previous playoff series against Calgary, beating the Flames in the 1984 Smythe Division final, four games to three, after embarrassing Calgary in the 1983 division final, four games to one. The Oilers outscored the Flames, 35-13, in 1983.

Edmonton, which had the best record in the NHL this season, had little trouble with the Flames during the regular season, posting a 6-1-1 record against Calgary and finishing 30 points ahead of the second-place Flames.

The Flames gained confidence against the Oilers in their final two regular-season games, however, posting a tie and then a win.

“I remember sitting in this exact spot two years ago (after Calgary had been eliminated by Edmonton in the playoffs),” defenseman Jamie Macoun of the Flames said after the seventh game. “I was so dejected. We ended up on the wrong side of the stick. I like it on this side.

“After that first loss and even last year, everybody was coming up to us and saying, ‘Oh well, nice try.’ It felt worse when everyone felt sorry for us.”

But the Flames haven’t had much time to savor their upset of Edmonton, since they went almost immediately into their series with St. Louis, losing the opener, 3-2, then coming back Sunday for an impressive 8-2 victory.

There is no doubt, though, how seriously the Edmonton series was taken by those close to it. Said a headline on the front page--the front page, not the front page of the sports section--of an Edmonton newspaper: “Heartbreaker!--Birthday Boy’s Blunder Ousts Oilers.”

Another headline read: “Biggest Blunder Ever?”

A Calgary paper’s headline read: “Seventh Heaven.”

The winning goal in the seventh game of the series against the Oilers was credited to center Perry Berezan of the Flames, but it was actually scored by rookie defenseman Steve Smith of the Oilers.

Smith, who was celebrating his 25th birthday, scored an own goal when he accidentally knocked the puck into his own net off the skate of Edmonton goalie Grant Fuhr in the third period while attempting a clearing pass.

Berezan later told reporters: “I didn’t even see it. I dumped the puck into the zone and I was at the bench ready to sit down when the roar went up from the crowd.”

Calgary veteran right wing Lanny McDonald said the winning goal was a gift from God.

“When I saw the goal go in, I couldn’t believe it,” McDonald told the Associated Press.

“Then I felt it was meant to be. We did a lot of praying in this (dressing) room and God finally answered our prayer.”