Thursday, October 13, 2005

 

Who knew?

Flames A.C. Jim Playfair is a former Oiler. Mainly a Nova Scotia Oiler, but an Oiler nonetheless.

This revelation (to me) comes via a rather charming anecdote in Jean LeFebvre's Calgary Herald piece yesterday:
With the milestone moment [1st goal] coming in a 7-3 Flames loss, however, Phaneuf unfortunately won't have a corker of a story to accompany the souvenir. At least nothing like the tale surrounding Playfair's first big-league marker.

"I was playing with the Oilers," recalls a chuckling Playfair. "We beat New Jersey 13-2 and I got the 11th goal. Gretzky came up to me after I scored and said, 'Phew, thanks for taking the pressure off, kid.' "

Jim Playfair's profile at hockeydb.com here (NHL career: 21GP, 2G, 4A, 51PIM). Note the draft position of 20th overall by the Oilers, marking the transition from the sublimely lucky Oiler draft era of Lowe, Messier, Anderson, Coffey, Kurri, Moog, and Fuhr to the ongoing era of Selmar Odelein, Kim Issel, Jason Bonsignore, Steve Kelly, and Jani Rita.

Addendum: interesting to note that JP played only two games with Edmonton, and one of them was the "Mickey Mouse" game. As I recall, that was the first time in 99's career that he said anything even remotely controversial (which is why it got so much attention at the time). And by controversial, of course I mean "absolutely true, but not very polite".

Comments:

Jim Playfair also shares the distinction (with his brother Larry) of having had the least truthful surname in sports history.
 


Re: Jim Playfair an unfair player.
Indeed.
I vaguely remember him fighting in the penalty box when he was with the Wranglers. Ahhh, the Wranglers. Now I'm going to zone out for the day and think about the Corral.
--Randy
 

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