faced the Florida Panthers<\/a>\u00a0Wednesday night\u00a0in a finals rematch, the T\u0142\u0131\u0328ch\u01eb community of just over 600 people\u00a0showed its support with watch parties, parades, potlucks and seas of orange jerseys.<\/p>\nShaun Moosenose has become the unofficial organizer of those events \u2014 a role he says he got thrown into as passion for the team took off. For the first game of the finals Wednesday night, he organized a barbecue and potluck at the community’s cultural centre. He said he’s enjoyed seeing the community unite for the team.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s just something great for the community that they get together and we just focus on one thing,” he said.<\/p>\n
After posting online about the community’s parade for the Oilers in the last round of the playoffs, Moosenose said people have been sharing like crazy and he’s been receiving donations for more Oilers swag. He said people in Yellowknife 250 kilometres southeast of\u00a0What\u0131\u0300 and as far away as Whitecourt, Alta., have donated T-shirts and Oilers gear for the community.<\/p>\n
All that outpouring of support \u2014 and the effect he saw that have on his fellow residents \u2014 helped spark his own drive to celebrate.”This whole entire Oilers fan club thing just took off. And you know, I think it’s just something great for the community that they get together and we just focus on one thing and one thing only,” he said.<\/p>\n
Moosenose said he’s never been a big Oilers fan himself \u2014\u00a0though he’s reluctant to admit it \u2014 but even he is getting into cheering for the team.<\/p>\n
“[Seeing] the smiles and the joy … the people actually love the Oilers and they’re huge fans, and I ended up spending money on some merchandise myself,” he said.<\/p>\n
Now the proud owner of an Oilers jersey and a hat, he said he’s excited to be part of the celebration.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Francis Beaverho\u00a0and his son Bernard\u00a0are spreading that Oilers spirit to other communities.<\/p>\n
The father and son, also from What\u0131\u0300, drive their truck \u2014 decked out in towering Oilers flags \u2014 around Yellowknife and up the road to Dettah.<\/p>\n
Beaverho says he inherited his love of hockey from his dad. When people see his truck, he said, they’re happy.<\/p>\n
Some of his flags come from Edmonton \u2014 he buys them when he takes trips south. Some of them, he gives away to people who are as excited for the team as he is.<\/p>\n
He and Bernard\u00a0say they love hearing people honk and cheer when they see his vehicle.<\/p>\n
For the athletes on the ice, Beaverho has one message: “Let’s go Oilers!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl might be surprised to learn that some of their biggest fans are on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[155,146,5,370,13044],"class_list":{"0":"post-63417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-connor-mcdavid","9":"tag-edmonton-oilers","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-leon-draisaitl","12":"tag-oilers-jersey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/114635562276431391","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}