“It didn’t look good,” Palichuk said. “We were confident they were going to win one game but never imagined that they’d bring it this far. It’s almost the perfect storm. You couldn’t have written a better story.”
Palichuk is managing partner of Wilde Advisory Group in Vegreville, Alberta, about an hour east of Edmonton. He remembers the Oilers glory days, their championships in 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988 and 1990, and he’s a season-ticket holder.
He and some business associates started organizing the charter with North Cariboo Air at 4 p.m. Friday, two hours before Game 6 at Rogers Place in Edmonton, because they had to get the process started in case the Oilers won. They had to put up a refundable payment.
“You can’t transact banking on the weekend, right?” Palichuk said.
Basically, they reached out to their network of colleagues and clients, asking everyone to tell two friends too.
Sure enough, the Oilers won 5-1 in Game 6, forcing Game 7.
“It was the highest energy of anything I’ve ever experienced, period,” Palichuk said. “The crowd was totally into it. The loudest I saw was 110 decibels, but they said it hit 120 during the game. I don’t know if that’s confirmed or not.
“It’s hard to describe that energy. I cannot believe how many people we ran into that we knew, many of whom are on the charter.”
They ended up with 95 names and had to wrangle passport information for everyone for the manifest. They got it done by 12:30 p.m. Saturday.
