Mark Messier has always been my favourite Oiler.
I know, I know, the best player of all time, Wayne Gretzky, played here. But Gretzky belonged more to the game itself than to Edmonton. Mess was all ours.
He had the best hands and skate-cutting move, ever.
He was the embodiment of our city. Skilled, but hardworking. Graceful at times, but also a grinder when he needed to be. A superstar who was tough, too.
So it was disconcerting to read that Messier was “just horrified” the team had hired Mike Babcock as its new head coach. Messier added “I’m absolutely shocked from the stories that I heard from very good, reputable, character people about the way they were treated” by Babcock in earlier coaching jobs.
Has Messier forgotten the Oilers are the team of second chances? We take players (and coaches) other teams are reluctant to sign and help them regain their reputations.
Messier wasn’t always an angel while he was here, but the team never turned its back on him.
Certainly there were stories, particularly from Babcock’s time as Leafs’ coach, that he played psychologic games with players to the point where the treatment seemed abusive.
And, of course, his tenure behind the bench with the Columbus Blue Jackets ended before the puck dropped on his first game due to reports he had pressured his players to show him personal photos from their phones.
But if Babcock has truly turned over a new leaf, which Oilers players say he has, he deserves one of the team’s famous second chances.
It was a bit rich that Messier also criticized Oilers on-ice leaders Conner McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman for advocating for Babcock’s hiring, as if it were inappropriate for senior players to have a say.
Of course, Messier himself was highly involved in the Canucks’ hiring of Mike Keenan when Messier was with that team in 1997. Keenan publicly admitted he got the job because Messier had gone to team owner John McCaw and pushed for his hiring.
But it’s not just Messier who is overlooking the Oilers’ reputation for rehabbing hockey careers.
Fans who are protesting the signing of Alex Formenton, who was under suspicion for his involvement in a sexual assault case in Ontario, have been chanting “no means no” outside Oilers pre-season games. True, but not guilty also means not guilty.
Formenton had his life and career put on hold for three years while being put through a high-profile trial in which Justice Maria Carroccia eventually acquitted Formenton and another four players because she found the woman who accused them was “insufficiently reliable” and inconsistent in her testimony.
Formenton has been reinstated by both the NHL and Hockey Canada. He gets to have a second chance here.
There have also been the examples of Evander Kane, Zack Kassian, Corey Perry and Raffi Torres. Even hall-of-famer Grant Fuhr was forgiven his rumoured substance abuse.
Perhaps the most famous example is Craig MacTavish, who has been with the Oilers for many of the last 40 years as a player, coach and executive.
When then GM Glen Sather went to meet with MacTavish in the mid-’80s and offer him a spot on the roster, MacTavish was in prison for vehicular homicide.
Even the Oilers current GM, Stan Bowman, was the first Chicago Blackhawks executive given a chance to return to the league after his involvement in covering up the Kyle Beach scandal.
Bowman isn’t yet very popular with fans, but most of the rest of the castoffs above became fan favourites despite their mistakes.
Rather than condemning Formenton for which a judge found him not guilty, fans like Mama Stanley and the 65,000 others who have signed a petition demanding Formenton’s release should show some patience and understanding and let him prove himself on and off the ice.
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