By Nadine Yousif, BBC News, Toronto
Some of Shelina Gwaduri’s earliest memories are of huddling around the family television to watch an Edmonton Oilers game.
One day, she and her older brother, Karim, went to a game and stayed to meet superstar player Wayne Gretzky, the franchise’s captain at the time.
“Ever since I was born, the Oilers were in my blood,” the 43-year-old, who now lives in Vancouver, told the BBC.
His brother died suddenly four years ago.
Now she wears the Oilers jersey in every game, including watching her hometown team make a miraculous comeback against the Florida Panthers in this year’s Stanley Cup Final.
The Edmonton Oilers are now one win away from capturing the National Hockey League’s (NHL) biggest prize, playing their final game against Florida on Monday in the best-of-seven series.
If the Oilers were successful, they would become the first Canadian NHL team to win the championship since 1993, when the Montreal Canadiens beat the Los Angeles Kings. It would also be the Oilers’ first Stanley Cup victory since 1990.
But the team is on the brink of something even rarer: Since 1945, no team has come back from a 3-0 loss to even a series in the Stanley Cup Finals. They are only the third team in NHL history to achieve such a feat.
And only one other team – the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs – came back from such a deficit and won the Cup.
Fans like Gwaduri say an Edmonton victory would be a milestone even in the rich history of the team, which was once home to Gretzky, who many say is the greatest ice hockey player of all time. time.
His team’s winning streak in the 1980s earned Edmonton the nickname “City of Champions.”
A victory would also be a source of pride for Canada, where dedicated fans have waited decades for the Stanley Cup to return to the birthplace of modern hockey.
Ms. Gwaduri said even her husband, an avid fan of the Oilers’ rival team, the Vancouver Canucks, is excited about the potential victory.
“It brings us all together in the excitement of, ‘Oh my God, is this actually happening?’” she said.
Once arguably the greatest team in the NHL, the Edmonton Oilers have been out of luck for a long time.
In 2006, the team fought their way to the Stanley Cup Finals in hopes of winning a sixth title, only to suffer a crushing loss in Game 7 against the Carolina Hurricanes.
The period that followed became known as “The Decade of Darkness.”
But in 2015, the Oilers signed Connor McDavid, then a 19-year-old hockey phenom from the Toronto area.
The gifted young player has proven himself to be a generational talent, said Daniel Nugent-Bowman, who covers the franchise for sports publication The Athletic.
“The term is used quite loosely, but he is the definition of a generational actor,” Mr Nugent-Bowman told the BBC.
McDavid is known for his dazzling skills on the ice, with speed and precision that few other players rival.
“If his career ended today, he would be in the Hall of Fame and considered one of the greatest hockey players of all time, at 27 years old, without a Stanley Cup,” said Mr. .Nugent-Bowman.
But it would be nine years after McDavid signed before the Oilers could compete for the Cup again.
“This journey didn’t happen overnight,” Mr. Nugent-Bowman said.
The team’s spectacular comeback and perseverance against the Florida Panthers only adds to the excitement on Monday.
“I’m a big fan of really good stories,” said Travis Sengaus, who cheers for the rival Calgary Flames but is nevertheless excited about Edmonton’s success.
Mr. Sengaus recalled other miraculous rebounds in sports history, such as when the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series, becoming the first – and still the only team to come back from a 3-0 deficit in the Major League. Baseball.
Or when LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Golden State Warriors in 2016 to win the National Basketball Association championship after trailing for much of the series.
It is widely considered one of the greatest basketball finals of all time.
The Oilers, he said, are on the cusp of their own great history – one that is “very hard to resist.”
The Florida Panthers, of course, have their own history. A relatively new franchise – established 31 years ago, the same year a Canadian team last won the Stanley Cup – the Miami-based team is hungry to win its first-ever championship.
They came close last year, but lost four of five games in the finals to the Vegas Golden Knights.
Although Florida is not known for its winter sports, ice hockey fandom in the state has swelled following the recent success of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who won the Stanley Cup in 2020 and 2021 .
Before Monday’s game, Panthers coach Paul Maurice said he was “not at all concerned about the past.”
“The concerns from the previous three games certainly didn’t affect Edmonton and it won’t affect us,” he said.
Meanwhile, Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said he’s just enjoying the journey.
“Not just because we’re going into Game 7, but I think we had a good time when we were down three games,” he said.
The series is fervently followed by tens of thousands of passionate fans in Edmonton, the northernmost city in North America with a population of just over a million, known for its frigid winters and its unwavering determination.
Spencer Bennett, an Edmonton-area teacher, said his school broadcast Game 6 during the middle school’s graduation ceremony.
“It was incredible. We were all clapping, congratulating each other and screaming at the top of our lungs,” he said.
When he and the students sang Oh Canada during the live broadcast of the game, it was like “having 16,000 of my closest friends singing our national anthem together.”
Mr. Nugent-Bowman, who was inside the arena, said it was “the loudest I’ve ever heard in this building.”
“Hockey means everything to Edmonton,” he said, even though younger generations probably don’t remember the height of Gretsky’s reign.
“There were so many lean years and people waited so long in Edmonton for another team like the one from the 80s.”
For Ms. Gwaduri, a victory is a chance for Edmonton to once again live up to its nickname.
“The new generation can now see that this was the City of Champions, and it still is,” she said.
She plans to watch the final game of the season with her husband, children, and extended family members.
“It’ll almost be like we’re back in the ’80s and ’90s with my family, getting together and watching (the team) potentially win this Cup.”
