Yep, I think you’re correct, they were on their way in ‘84 and without the ‘GIFT’ in ‘86, the Oilers would have been favourites throughout the ‘80’s and into the ‘90’s. I’m a Leaf’s fan but I was devastated to see Gretzky sign in California…

Totally agree 👍

Mac T's Oilers were robbed in 2006!

Glad you finally got to get that feeling!

Congrats you got one. I was pulling for the Blues to finally get the monkey off their backs. The Blues fans are outstanding.

I’ve just looked at the video you commented on 4 years ago and at that time your Blues hadn’t had the exhilaration of winning the Stanley Cup. Now here in early 2023 your Blues have indeed won it. As a Leafs fan, I can honestly say that I am a little jealous as you may know, we haven’t had a winner since 1967. I was 13 at the time and as a kid I couldn’t imagine a season where the Leafs wouldn’t be successful in the playoffs. Needless to say, here in T.O. it’s been 55 years since we hoisted the cup. Happy for you tho’, I remember how special that time was. Still cheering for the team with the LONGEST cup drought. Be well, friend

That’s cool. I’m Canadian & grew up playing hockey from around the age of 7-8 years old. I grew up in a small town called St.Marys,Ontario, Canada which is roughly 2 hours from Toronto so I grew up a Leafs Fan, Toronto has so many fans, even at away games half the building is Leaf Fans. I grew up watching Hockey Night In Canada with Don Cherry & Ron McClean. But all 7 Canadian teams have very strong fan bases, it was nice to see the Winnipeg Jets get their team back & they have the smallest arena in the NHL but are one of the loudest arenas in the league, especially come playoff time with the famous “White Out” which is so “L O U D” Go Leafs Go!!!

​@@sudsysutherland359 Yep. Sorry I didn't reply back sooner, but happened upon this video again, and decided to watch it again (yes, I'm a big hockey fan lol). I spent my formative years on a 90-acre farm in southern Maine, and we had a pond that nicely doubled as a skating pond during winter, and after school when the yellow bus dropped my sister and I off at home, I rushed to put on my skates to catch about an hour's worth of daylight skating on the pond before the early sunsets would hit. I played a lot of pond hockey growing up with my friends, and nothing like freezing rain the night before, then going out on a pond and skating on what looks like a sheet of glass. No zamboni/indoor ice surface can match virgin ice on a pond. I miss that a lot. Regarding Canadian fan bases, I largely agree with you. There are pockets in the US (obviously Boston, Pittsburgh, Detroit/MI, Minnesota, NY, etc.) where hockey is pretty big, and while I believe the most intense ongoing hockey rivalry is the Canadiens-Bruins (with all due respect to the Habs-Leafs rivalry), I think THE most intense, crazy rivalry was the old Quebec Nordiques-Habs rivalry, back when Quebec still had a team in the NHL. The only reason the Habs-Nordiques rivalry isn't the best ever is because of how short it was, obviously when the Nordiques moved to Colorado to become the Avalanche. That said, what the NHL needs to do is take one of the southern US teams (Carolina or Florida) and move them back to Quebec City, especially as Quebec already built a new NHL-ready arena!! P.S. Don Cherry is The Man. It was disgusting to see the "politically correct" assholes attacking Cherry some months back, so I was VERY glad to see Bobby Orr come to his defense.

I won't watch hockey anymore but did from the 50's through the 90's, and have to say the Battle of Alberta was as the most exciting rivalry I ever saw. That includes Boston/Montreal, Battle of Quebec, Battle of New York, etc. there was true hate and great skill.

Ben Ashworth yes 1984 was a kick ass year.

They needed an Oiler to get to the Top

@@martytruelove5026 lol damn right..but 94 was great...good for nyc and the garden

nymike06: Well said, Mike. In the 90's, your Rangers were 'Edmonton East' ... :)

Thankfully we had Moose and half the Oilers team or we would still be waiting!

That’s because half of the guys won’t you a cup in 94 lol.. how many oilers were on that team

john schober: You said it, John! Had that team remained intact, they would have won eight Stanley Cups - minimum!

@Joseph McAuley Beaten "badly"? Who the Hades do you think you're kidding. The Devils might have beaten them ONCE, but neither Detroit nor the Avs had the D corps to stay with those Gretzky-Messier Oilers. Too fast, and too skilled, with more than enough toughness to handle those clubs.

This is to ice hockey what the Manchester United European Cup team of 1999 was to English football. Truly the best team in the world that year. It had been coming. People were talking about the youth team players coming through but nobody expected what they achieved. Every time I think 99 I think Gretzky. Best ice hockey team ever? I can’t see the current Pens team getting anywhere near this level. Very special team. I will never understand why he went to the LA Kings and whether or not it was his choice. It doesn’t seem like it’s what he wanted when you watch ‘that interview’ but other sources say it was his choice.

@@briancusack4386 well, they won one without wayne, so at least 2 more with wayne

@Joseph McAuley yeah, but they would have dominated till 92 at least

Thank you for the notifications. All of them were a big part of my 1980's and they are missed... R.I.P.

The 1980s was a very special and unique decade of sports events! I turned 12 in 1980, and I remember watching the "Miracle on Ice" match. Just months later, rookie gold medalist Kenny Morrow of the USA hockey team would go on to win this first Stanley Cup with the NY Islanders. Wayne Gretsky and Kenny Morrow and Joe Montana and Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, all of them, went into their respective professional leagues at about the same time period! ALL OF THEM WOULD BECOME HALL OF FAME CHAMPIONS IN THEIR RESPECTIVE SPORTS LEAGUES! The 1980s were also so unique and special for the music that captivated the popular culture as well. You hear a melody on the radio, and usually, you can tell if that song was from the 1980s!

unpredictable man: So true.

Nope

I Agree I'm a Flyers Fan Too Since My Childhood Days in The 90's I Have Great Respect For The 80's Oilers Teams!

2 out of 3 ain't bad. No love for the Wings. But that's because I was a North Stars fan. So Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis were on the hate list.

If they stay together in the 90s, Edmonton has 8 or 9 Cups.

Agreed.....Reijo Ruotsalainen addition as well... that playoff team was unstoppable

Rent-a-Rexy

@@loilt5091 Yes....the league soon put an end to the playoff rentals like Reijo...

They were always trying to stop The Oil in those days, the irony being we were our own, worst enemys; egos & money.

Yeah, 87 is better because they were right in the heart of their prime.

On the way up again HERREN!

You can say that about the entire NHL, unfortunately. The passion is gone, and it's a crime. Tortorella is right.

Oilers looked like they were VERY STRONG in the 2017 run...damn Anaheim !(and for the Lucic haters...he looked good)

Heartbreaking to see what hockey has become in this new century, from the 50's thru the 90's it was the best!

Nobody that I know has ever forgiven that two-bit chiseler.

@ Marty Truelove I can honestly say that I would rather have had Gretzky remain an Oiler than trade him to grow the game in the U. S. The game still would have grown despite #99 suiting up as an Oiler.

Like the commercial jingle goes, "I'd like to buy the world some coke, and teach it harmony."

Having Gretzky didn't hurt either.

@@user-hm5zb1qn6g Larry Bird said all he really needed was some Coke and he was happy.

+Traveling Cam Uhhhhh, no!

I think the '87 Cup winners had it all with the late season addition of Kent "The Magic Man" to compliment Messier/Anderson and the playoff pickup Slats made of puck moving d-man Reijo Ruotsalainen.

@@flyflouridite2537 Yeah, That '86-'87 team was turbocharged....and then they picked up Kent Nilson for the playoffs who added 19 points in 21 playoff games. I don't know a team that could beat them in a seven game series.

That was probably Francine. There was another person who answered the phones for Oiler public relations named Brian. They were so nice, but Francine was an Angel. Same here, 1987-1988 off season. I called and she sent me one old and one current media guide, several Vachon Cake's Oiler stickers, two medium sized team emblem stickers, a souvenir brochure with the players modeling team apparel and a team "troll" key fob. I still have all of it!

Probably not. The game has changed too much from those days.

No. Today's game is way too defensive, not to mention passion-free. No thanks, especially at those ticket prices.

The man with the rubber stick lol

I didn't recognize Kevin "Macker" Mcclelland in the film, I wish they had done a better job of identifying all the players who attended.

Neil Korchinski

Neil Korchinski

That's sweet!! There both really nice guys.!! Mark is from my home town St Albert.!!

And...most importantly...more PASSION, also a better style of play. Few things more boring to watch than "puck cycling", smh.

J Marciano umm, yeeah, sure they would :D sports tend to evolve. It's a cold fact that the 80's Oilers would be left standing in today's NHL. Just as Ford makes better cars now than 30 years ago, hockey players today are on a different level now. The amount of work and practice you need to put in to even dream of making the NHL has grown exponentially since the 80's. The professionalism and athletecism is on a completely different level now.

J Marciano I agree it's silly and stupid to compare different teams from different decades BECAUSE the game is always evolving - The 70's The fighting decade The 80's free wheeling high scoring decade The 90's the clutch and grad decade AND the 2000's 2005 till now With All The New Rule Changes Allows the NHL to showcase their superstars with practically a no touch league - So Yes whenever a team won at the time They were the best team at the time Plain and Simple.

@@sakarikosonen6228 False. And absurd. Those Oiler clubs had more skill, speed and grit than what we see in today's watered down NHL. They'd kick ass in a league where there's so little hitting and no redline.

@@sakarikosonen6228 wrong! If the oilers skated 45 second shifts they would compete on par or better with today’s nhlers. Now, would the rock ‘em sock ‘em, clutch and grab rules of yesteryear be in place or would it be the don’t even breathe on ‘em rules of today? My money would be on prime Gretzky, Messier, Coffey, Kurri, Anderson, Nilsson, and Fuhr, in any era!!!

I was thinking the same thing .

Big Dave taken so young

Because he passed away

I'm confused. Thought this video was from 2014. Smenks died in '17

grant fuhr has man boobs lmao

On November 2 , 1990 Graves was involved in a blockbuster trade with the Edmonton Oilers. Along with Graves, the Oilers received Petr Klima, Joe Murphy and Jeff Sharples in exchange for Jimmy Carson, Kevin McClelland and Edmonton's fifth-round draft pick in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft. He was on the last Cup winning team for the Oilers in 1990

Wasn't there yet.