Imagine just days after one of the most gut-wrenching losses in your career, you and your teammates were embroiled in a public scandal after a scathing article accused you of being a team of drug addicts. That’s what happened to the Edmonton Oilers in 1985-86. 

Steve Smith infamously banked the puck off of Grant Fuhr’s leg into the Oilers net with 13 minutes left in Game 7 of the Smythe Division Final against the Calgary Flames on April 30, 1986. Edmonton couldn’t find a tying goal. 

That hard-fought Battle of Alberta classic series in 1985-86 gave the Flames legitimacy that they could compete with the Oilers and stopped Edmonton’s bid for three straight Stanley Cups. 

Questions surrounded the team after losing on April 30, and “growing up,” they’d have to do. 

But that quote took on a new context less than two weeks later, when a Sports Illustrated story linked the franchise with rumour, innuendo, and criminality.  

Forty years ago today, SI published an article that claimed five unnamed Edmonton Oilers had “substantial cocaine” problems, according to the writer’s unnamed sources. 

The piece in the May 12, 1986, issue was called “The Joyless End to a Joyless Ride” and put the organization under a level of public scrutiny it hadn’t seen before. The Oilers denied these claims, even getting ahead of the magazine’s release to refute the rumours vociferously. 

“One former Oiler insider told SI that at least five team members have had ‘substantial’ cocaine problems,” the article, written by Armen Keteyian and Donald Ramsay, claimed in 1986.

“Three sources told SI they have seen Oiler players use cocaine or marijuana at parties in Edmonton and other NHL cities. One agent quoted an Edmonton player he represents as having told him, ‘Every time we go into New York City, it’s a real blizzard, and I’m not talking about the weather.’” 

Edmonton Journal article on May 8, 1986, after an advanced article about the Edmonton Oilers........

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