Welcome to the next installment of the Oil Spill blog series. Today I’ll be talking about how the Tulsa Oilers ended 2024 and how we’re starting 2025 along with all my hopes and dreams.

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The team rang in the new year in Rapid City, and I rang in the new year at home. I went up to our ice center – where the guy’s practice – and watched the game from the bar and grill area. Thankfully they had it on the big screen and not just the little ones. We had gone up for a previous watch party the weekend prior to NYE and they were also having a watch party for this football team called the Green Bay Packers, I don’t know if you know them? It wasn’t a great time. LOL. Anyway, they had the game on little screens that day, because half the place was there for the Packers, much to my disappointment.

On NYE, we were trailing early into the second period after the first goal was scored by Rapid, but in the first half of the third period we broke out and took the lead thanks to our mighty Captain, Michael Farren. 5 minutes later, we collapsed, and the Rapid City Rush tallied FOUR unanswered goals to make the score 5-2. I don’t even care that one was an empty netter.

So yeah. I entered the new year completely shooketh, which isn’t too off base from most nights when my team loses. I just don’t know why we had to go there and lose on that particular night. The only excuse may be that they were tired from traveling. Prior to NYE, they played the prior weekend 3 nights in a row (Friday through Sunday) in Lake Tahoe against the Knight Monsters. Against them, we won 1 out of the 3 matches.

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That’s all I’m going to talk about for 2024. 🙂

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Unfortunately, 2025 didn’t kick off to a good start either when one of my favorite Tulsa Oilers players got traded on the first day of the year. What in WORLD.

I hadn’t been this blindsided since… the last time this situation happened.

I thought I’d be over it, but that was days ago and I just… no. Please bring back our defenseman. I don’t care that we have other guys. Why would you do this to Kylor Wall? And send him to Kalamazoo of all places!! I guess a positive would be that we don’t play that team since they’re in a different division, but also, we won’t play them so.

After gathering more information from the pre-game broadcast, it was made known that Wall was not getting the playing opportunities he would like (that’s true, because he didn’t play a whole lot) and so he requested the change. The coach put out some feelers with other teams and it just happened that Jan 1st he heard of interest. So…

I had high hopes for 2025, but now I’m on the fence with hockey. I don’t want to be on a fence and honestly, I don’t even know what kind of fence or the height of the fence it is. Sounds dangerous, if you ask me.

Okay, Kylor rant over. We wish him and his wife all the best on their next adventure in Kalamazoo!

Here’s a post that he made a while back as a guest on a blog by a retired hockey player I follow:

Pure Encouragement – Kylor Wall

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This weekend we faced off against Rapid City to end our two-week little road trip series.

On Friday, the game got going with two Oilers goals and a fight in the first period. The fight was between Cade McNelly who was playing his very first professional game with Tulsa after getting through some VISA issues. The 23yo took on Garrett Klotz of the Rush who is a seasoned veteran to the game and a fighter, at the age of 36. The game didn’t stop there, because when the guy’s returned for the last two periods, they meant business. Three more goals were scored (all by different players!) between the two frames by the good guys. At the end of the game, Oilers tallied a WIN and our goalie, Vyacheslav Buteyets, tallied his third shutout win of the season. It was a great game to say the least.

Saturday night’s game was…

So many penalties. (See my first GIF for another reaction I’d like to repeat.) It was very one-sided. Missed calls. Bogus calls. It was not good. There was some fighting going on with Cade McNelly getting his second fight in as many nights.

The game itself went a little like this: Rapid City scored first. We later tied it up. We went into the final period tied up but with only a few minutes left, let Rapid City score a goal to take the lead. With that already being close to the wire to come back from, though not impossible, we pulled the goalie and allowed them to unfortunately take the win with an empty net goal. Final score was 3-1.

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Right now, we’re still in fourth place (in our division), which is a playoff spot. We still have plenty of game left, but not enough to let things slide. We can’t be letting losses into our stats. Every game will matter from here on out and we should start looking like a playoff team.

We’re also 5th in the conference, while being 10th in the league with a winning record of 18-11-3-0. Not a bad place to be out of the 29 teams in the ECHL.

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Until more hockey drama unfolds, that’s all I have for today. Thanks for stopping by!