You've got hate mail

Not only do the Edmonton Oilers not have any sense of stage, they just don't have any sense of sensibility.

Seldom does such a gold-plated opportunity present itself to a 30th place NHL team in a Canadian market to do the right thing. And they didn't even see it.

Either that or they didn't want the hockey world making fun of them for dressing a woman for a game.

I'm not sure which is worse. The latter I think.

Either way Shannon Szabados should have been the one the Oilers called to solve their backup goaltending problem when Devan Dubnyk came down with the flu prior to Tuesday night's game with the Vancouver Canucks.

�It's brutal,� said the national women's netminder who could have been part of the same game as the other national netminder, Roberto Luongo, even if she didn't actually get in it.

�I'm just so disappointed,� she said.

�It's the story of my life being a girl goaltender. They don't give you the opportunity. That shows you right there.�

After a morning of madly trying to find somebody to sit at the end of the bench while Jeff Deslauriers played, their search ended up 300 miles south with the third string goalie of the University of Calgary Dinos.

Nathan Deobald hadn't played a game all year for the Dinos until first-string goaltender Dustin Butler was injured and replacement Jeff Weber was tossed from the same game, the first game of the playoffs against the U of A Golden Bears with 18 seconds remaining. Deobald played in the second game.

Szabados has played her entire career other than the international games this year, against men. There would likely not be much debate about whether or not she was as good a goalie as the third string goalie of the U of Calgary Dinosaurs.

�Yeah, you'd think so,� she said.

�Instead they had to fly him in from Calgary when I was right here in Edmonton. Story of my life. But she didn't get a call from the Oilers during their mad scramble to put a uniform on somebody.

�I think I got calls from everyone else,� she said of the media.

Rick Olcyzk was the quarterback of the Oilers stand in goalie search.

�First we looked at our farm club, but we couldn't get Bryan Pitton here until 10:30 p.m. Then we looked at the juniors. But the Oil Kings season is over and none of the goaltenders are in town. We couldn't use Torrie Jung again,� he said of the junior goaltender who came in during the same situation earlier this year when Nikolai Khabibulin was injured.

�There's a rule that this is a one-time sort of thing. Even if he was available, we couldn't use him again.

�We wanted to go local. We called the U of A but the Golden Bears' plane had just left for the nationals and they took all three of their goaltenders. So we looked to Calgary. We couldn't use Weber because he had previous pro experience. And Butler was injured. I was sweating.�

Olcyzk said he didn't �get down the list� past juniors and CIS goalies.

When asked if Szabados was on the list, he said: �Who knows what this day would have turned into if Nathan hadn't made it here?�

One theory which was being bandied about was that the club didn't think Szabados was big enough to fit Oilers equipment and that her equipment wouldn't be allowed because it wasn't NHL approved, as was the case when the Oilers brought up Jung from the Oil Kings in the same situation earlier this year and he couldn't wear his junior gear.

But when the alleged five-foot-nine Dino showed up on the ice, it was obvious he had that measurement taken with his skates on.

�He's shorter than I am,� Szabados said.

�And all my stuff is NHL regulation. All of my stuff got measured and approved for the Olympics. That had nothing to do with it.�

Szabados is right to take it as an insult. In her own home town, the team she grew up cheering for obviously didn't think of her as a goalie when they were looking for one.

They owe her an apology. And a game.

"Alta_redneck" said
They don't owe her anything but what a get idea. Give her the last game of the year, it's a nothing game for the Oilers or Duck.

Something like this should not be wasted on a last minute call up. Promote it for a couple of weeks.