Shocker.

Well, according to Mirtle's Playoff Push, last night's loss to the Ducks officially put the Oilers out of reach of the Playoffs. At least this means the terrible 2006-07 season will soon be history.

There's some interesting talk in a post below about whether the Oil deserve our fandom at this point. Andy makes some good points about "voting with your dollars" when management tears the team apart and offers a sub-par product, which I agree with to a point. However, an integral part of fandom is loyalty, and jumping ship when the team is losing turns my stomach nearly as much as when bandwagon-jumpers "adopt" the team when it's performing well (Red Mile, anyone?). Fairweather fans are cheating themselves -- sure, it's fun to get caught up in the winning, and who wants to cheer for a team who is lower in the standings than perennial butt-of-all-jokes St. Louis? What they're missing is that it's seasons like these that make playoff runs like last year's so much sweeter. Cheering only for a winning team is boring! I mean, would beating the President's Trophy winning Red Wings in the first round have felt nearly as good if you couldn't remember all of those heartbreaking playoff losses to the (grr) Dallas Stars over the past decade?

I'll admit that I was a more passive Oil fan through the black mid-90's, but they never stopped being my team. I still don't know if I'm going to choose a team to follow through the playoffs, now that it's all-but-confirmed the Oilers won't be there. What I do know is that I'll be back in front of the TV next October, ready to cheer on whatever rag-tag bunch of misfits that K.Lo has assembled, even if it's just a bunch of hobos, Russian skating bears, and Matt Greene.